chore(devx): make dev/CI deterministic and move iOS tests into package ownership

[thisislvca]

Yesterday, when I first tried to contribute to this package, the experience was honestly a mess, mainly because of all the committed native output. I started working on this to remove that, and ended up fixing most of the issues I could see in the development setup. Hopefully this leads to more contributions :)

TL;DR:

This PR stabilizes the contributor/dev workflow without changing the public JS API. I moved iOS tests and harness ownership into the package, aligned the example app with Expo's CNG workflow guidance (generate native output instead of tracking it in git), hardened CI/local test and lint paths, and tightened npm publish filtering so package contents stay lean and aligned with current release expectations.

What the situation looked like before

• Our development workflow mixed toolchains (npm, npx, bun) and had stale path references from the old example/ layout
• The example app still tracked generated native output (apps/example/ios, apps/example/android, apps/example/targets), which created high PR churn after expo prebuild
• Example app identity/signing values were effectively hardcoded in tracked config, so local setup details were easy to leak into commits
• Swift tests were package concerns but lived under the example app, so ownership and execution paths were split across app/package boundaries
• SwiftLint and test harness wiring depended on example-app CocoaPods paths, making local and CI behavior harder to keep aligned
• Test coverage around config plugin behavior and runtime wrapper delegation was too thin for this setup
• Prettier invocation vulnerable to binary shadowing from transitive tooling (expo-module-scripts), which made formatting on save different from formatting through the CLI

Why I made these changes

• Reduce noisy, non-functional diffs from generated native files.
• Make local setup safe and repeatable without committing developer-specific values.
• Put tests and test infrastructure where they belong: in the package.
• Make pre-push and CI checks match real usage paths and fail earlier when setup is incomplete.
• Remove ambiguity from formatting/lint/tool invocation so contributors get the same behavior.

What changed

1) Tooling and path consistency

• Added repo-level Prettier config/ignore and explicit format scripts.
• Standardized local script entrypoints on Bun (.husky/pre-push, example prebuild using bunx).
• Fixed stale example/* references to apps/example/* in workflows, ignores, docs, and scripts.
• Added a deterministic Prettier invocation (node ./node_modules/prettier/bin/prettier.cjs) to avoid PATH/bin shadowing (where transitive tooling can resolve the wrong Prettier binary/version). See expo/expo#42994.

2) Example app moved to env-driven CNG flow

• Replaced apps/example/app.json with env-driven apps/example/app.config.ts.
• Added apps/example/.env.example for:
  • RNDA_APPLE_TEAM_ID
  • RNDA_APP_GROUP
  • RNDA_IOS_BUNDLE_ID
  • RNDA_ANDROID_PACKAGE
• Aligned the example workflow with Expo's Continuous Native Generation (CNG) guidance (generate native folders from config rather than tracking generated native output in git): https://docs.expo.dev/workflow/continuous-native-generation/
• Stopped tracking generated example native output (apps/example/ios, apps/example/android) and generated target output (apps/example/targets).
• Removed already-tracked generated files from those folders to stop recurring churn.
• This is intentional: apps/example/ios, apps/example/android, and apps/example/targets are generated outputs and are expected to be regenerated locally, not committed.

3) iOS tests now package-owned, with a package-owned harness

• Moved Swift test sources to packages/react-native-device-activity/ios/Tests.
• Moved the iOS test runner project to packages/react-native-device-activity/ios/TestHarness.
• Rewired harness paths (Podfile/Xcode project references) so the harness resolves the app root and targets correctly from its new package location.
• Updated SwiftLint scopes and hook/editor paths to run through the package-owned harness setup.

4) Clear source-of-truth for Apple target artifacts

• packages/react-native-device-activity/targets is now the canonical source for Apple target templates.
• Removed duplicate generated target artifacts under apps/example/targets.

5) Test workflow hardening

• Added config-plugin regression tests in packages/react-native-device-activity/plugin/__tests__/config-plugin.test.ts.
• Added plugin Jest config and a dedicated runtime Jest config.
• Reworked packages/react-native-device-activity/src/index.test.ts to properly mock runtime dependencies and verify native delegation behavior.
• Updated package test scripts so bun run test runs both runtime and plugin tests with CI=1 to keep Jest non-watch and deterministic in hooks/CI.
• Updated root pre-push to run typecheck, lint, tests, and SwiftLint.
• Updated iOS CI test job to run against the harness without the previous signing override flags that produced simulator-only behavior differences.

6) Packaging safety

• Updated packages/react-native-device-activity/ios/ReactNativeDeviceActivity.podspec to exclude Tests/**/* and TestHarness/**/* from pod source globs.
• Added packages/react-native-device-activity/.npmignore to exclude dev-only harness/test/plugin test files from npm publish artifacts.
• Excluded compiled test outputs from publish artifacts (build/*.test.*).
• Kept target template files in targets/ but excluded generated target metadata that is not part of the current published package (generated.entitlements and PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy files).

7) Docs and contributor workflow updates

• Rewrote CONTRIBUTING.md setup guidance around env config, CNG regeneration, harness ownership, SwiftLint setup, and formatting behavior.
• Updated README contributing/setup references to point to repository-specific guidance.

8) Post-review hardening fixes before merge

(On top of my manual review, I ran a few passes of codex and claude code reviews and fixed all regressions/bugs :)

• Fixed a clean-checkout regression where running example prebuild without the helper script could omit Apple targets:
  • CI prebuild now uses bun run prebuild from apps/example (which sets the required env toggles).
  • Example ios/android run scripts now also set COPY_TO_TARGET_FOLDER=true so target generation is consistent.
• Added JS test enforcement in CI so runtime/plugin tests are part of required validation (bun run test in test.yml and publish test gate).
• Restored Swift quality gates for production iOS module files by expanding SwiftLint include scope and pre-commit swift format coverage beyond tests/harness-only paths.
• Fixed the root swiftlint script guard so missing harness SwiftLint binaries fail fast and stop execution (instead of falling through to a second command failure).
• Aligned SwiftLint severity between local and CI by running CI SwiftLint with --strict (matching bun run pre-push behavior).
• Kept npm publish filtering aligned with current publish expectations so package artifacts stay lean and release-oriented.

NPM package footprint check

Measured on February 9, 2026 with npm pack --dry-run after prepublishOnly, compared against currently published react-native-device-activity@0.5.3.

Package artifact	Tarball size	Unpacked size	File count
Current npm package (0.5.3)	60,238 B	313,764 B	70
This PR candidate	59,845 B	312,107 B	66
Delta (candidate - current)	-393 B	-1,657 B	-4

Important note on formatter-only file changes

Some files changed only because we ran the formatter. Those edits are non-functional style/layout normalization, not behavior changes. This includes a few tiny package file touches, but no logic change.

How the situation is now

• Generated native/example artifacts are no longer creating PR noise.
• Local setup is reproducible and safer via env-driven app config.
• iOS tests are owned by the package and executed via a package-owned harness.
• Prebuild paths used in local scripts and CI now deterministically generate Apple targets in clean environments.
• JS runtime/plugin tests are now enforced in CI, not just local hooks.
• Package tests now run with CI=1, preventing local/CI watch-mode prompts during automated checks.
• Swift lint/format gates cover production iOS module files in addition to tests/targets/harness files.
• SwiftLint strictness is now consistent between local pre-push and CI.
• Lint/test/format commands are more deterministic locally and in CI.
• Plugin/runtime behavior has explicit regression coverage.
• Packaging excludes test/harness internals from pod source files and npm publish artifacts.

API / runtime impact

• No public JS API changes. No logic/package file changes.
• Primary impact is development workflow reliability, test ownership clarity, and CI/local determinism.

[pkg-pr-new]

Open in StackBlitz

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/kingstinct/react-native-device-activity@85

commit: 3f95fb7

[thisislvca]

@robertherber yo sorry for the monster-sized PR! I started working on it cuz I wanted to improve a couple things, but it ended up taking almost a full day. Honestly tho, was worth it, esp considering I need to add a couple more features to this package, including reporting as I mentioned (almost done).

DX now feels sublime compared to before. The codebase is also way more maintainable now. Lmk if you have any feedback/want some things changed. If you had other DX setup changes in mind happy to implement.