react-native

Storybook for React Native

With Storybook for React Native you can design and develop individual React Native components without running your app.

For more information visit: storybook.js.org

Getting Started

The getstorybook tool can be used to add Storybook to your React Native app. Install the getstorybook tool if necessary and run it from your project directory with these commands:

npm -g i @storybook/cli
getstorybook

After you have installed, there are additional steps for create-react-native-app apps. See the section for details, otherwise skip to Start Storybook to see the next step.

Create React Native App (CRNA)

If you run getstorybook inside a CRNA app, you'll be notified that there is an extra step required to use Storybook.

The easiest way to use Storybook inside CRNA is to simply replace your App with the Storybook UI, which is possible by replacing App.js with a single line of code:

export default from './storybook';

This will get you up and running quickly, but then you lose your app! There are multiple options here. for example, you can export conditionally:

import StorybookUI from './storybook';

import App from './app';

module.exports = __DEV__ ? StorybookUI : App;

Alternatively, StorybookUI is simply a RN View component that can be embedded anywhere in your RN application, e.g. on a tab or within an admin screen.

Start Storybook

After initial setup start the storybook server with the storybook npm script.

npm run storybook

Now, you can open http://localhost:7007 to view your storybook menus in the browser.

Start App

To see your Storybook stories on the device, you should start your mobile app for the <platform> of your choice (typically ios or android). (Note that due to an implementation detail, your stories will only show up in the left pane of your browser window after your device has connected to this storybook server.)

For CRNA apps:

npm run <platform>

For RN apps:

react-native run-<platform>

Once your app is started, changing the selected story in web browser will update the story displayed within your mobile app.

If you are using Android and you get the following error after running the app: 'websocket: connection error', 'Failed to connect to localhost/127.0.0.1:7007', you have to forward the port 7007 on your device/emulator to port 7007 on your local machine with the following command: adb reverse tcp:7007 tcp:7007

Using Haul-cli

Haul is an alternative to the react-native packager and has several advantages in that it allows you to define your own loaders, and handles symlinks better.

If you want to use haul instead of the react-native packager, modify the storybook npm script to:

storybook start -p 7007 --haul webpack.haul.storybook.js --platform android | ios | all

Where webpack.haul.storybook.js should look something like this:

module.exports = ({ platform }) => ({
  entry: `./storybook/index.${platform}.js`,
  // any other haul config here.
});

Seamless Typescript Integration

Note: These instructions are for react-native >= 0.45, @storybook/react-native >= 4.0.0-alpha.2 or higher and the (default) metro bundler

For seamless type integration (no intermediate build step) we use the custom rn cli config feature and the react-native-typescript-transformer project

First follow the instructions here.

Now update your storybook package.json script to the following

"scripts": {
   "storybook": "storybook start --metro-config $PWD/rn-cli.config.js -p 7007"
}

The metro bundler requires an absolute path to the config. The above setup assumes the rn-cli.config.js is in the root of your project or next to your package.json

Start Command Parameters

The following parameters can be passed to the start command:

-h, --host <host> 
    host to listen on
-p, --port <port>
    port to listen on
--haul <configFile>
    use haul with config file
--platform <ios|android|all>
    build platform-specific build
-s, --secured
    whether server is running on https
-c, --config-dir [dir-name]
    storybook config directory
--metro-config [relative-config-path]
    Metro Bundler Custom config
-e, --environment [environment]
    DEVELOPMENT/PRODUCTION environment for webpack
-r, --reset-cache
    reset react native packager
--skip-packager
    run only storybook server
-i, --manual-id
    allow multiple users to work with same storybook
--smoke-test
    Exit after successful start
--packager-port <packagerPort>
    Custom packager port
--root [root]
    Add additional root(s) to be used by the packager in this project
--projectRoots [projectRoots]
    Override the root(s) to be used by the packager

getStorybookUI Options

You can pass these parameters to getStorybookUI call in your storybook entry point:

{
    onDeviceUI: Boolean (false) 
        -- display stories list on the device
    disableWebsockets: Boolean (false) 
        -- allows to display stories without running storybook server. Should be used with onDeviceUI
    secured: Boolean (false) 
        -- use wss/https instead of ws/http
    host: String (NativeModules.SourceCode.scriptURL) 
        -- host to use
    port: Number (7007)
        -- port to use
    query: String ("") 
        -- additional query string to pass to websockets
}

Learn More

Check the docs directory in this repo for more advanced setup guides and other info.