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Expo Dev Tools

Built-in development tools provided by Expo CLI for debugging React Native applications during development.

Expo DevTools​

Expo provides built-in development tools accessible through the Expo CLI.

Accessing Dev Tools​

# Start Expo with dev tools
npx expo start

# Common commands in terminal:
# Press 'j' - Open React Native DevTools (Expo 52+)
# Press 'shift + m' - More tools menu
# Press 'r' - Reload app
# Press 'm' - Toggle React Dev Menu
# Press '?' - Show all options

Dev Menu Options​

Access the Dev Menu:

  • Physical device: Shake device
  • iOS Simulator: Press Cmd + D
  • Android Emulator: Press Cmd + M (Mac) or Ctrl + M (Windows/Linux)

Available options:

  • Reload
  • Open React Native DevTools
  • Toggle Element Inspector
  • Toggle Performance Monitor
  • Show Developer Menu
  • Debug Remote JS (deprecated)

Performance Monitor​

Enable from Dev Menu or Expo CLI:

# Press 'shift + m' in Expo CLI terminal
# Select "Toggle performance monitor"

Displays:

  • RAM usage
  • JavaScript heap size
  • Views count
  • UI/JS frame rates

Element Inspector​

Enable element inspection to visually select components:

# Press 'shift + m' in Expo CLI terminal
# Select "Inspect elements"

Features:

  • Tap components to inspect
  • View component props and styles
  • Navigate component hierarchy
  • Highlight component boundaries

React Native Debugger (Standalone)​

A standalone debugger based on official React Native debugger.

note

For Expo 52+ (WaveMaker 11.10.0+), use React Native DevTools which provides integrated debugging. This standalone debugger is for earlier versions.

Installation​

# macOS
brew install --cask react-native-debugger

# Or download from GitHub
# https://github.com/jhen0409/react-native-debugger/releases

Features​

  • Redux DevTools integration
  • React DevTools
  • Network inspection
  • Console logs
  • Async storage inspection

Primary Debugging Tools:

Additional Debugging Tools:

  • Flipper – Deprecated tool (historical reference)
  • Reactotron – Community debugging tool with custom logging

Testing Documentation:

Build Documentation:

External Resources:

tip

For new WaveMaker projects using Expo 52+ (WaveMaker 11.10.0+), start with React Native DevTools as your primary debugging tool.