expo-air

Installation

Add expo-air to your Expo project

Prerequisites

  • Expo SDK 54+
  • iOS 15.1+
  • Node.js 18+

Install

npx expo install @10play/expo-air

Initialize

npx expo-air init

This will:

  1. Create a .expo-air.json configuration file with default settings
  2. Add the expo-air config plugin to your app.json
  3. Update .gitignore to exclude .expo-air.local.json
  4. Run expo prebuild to apply native changes

Flags

FlagDescription
--forceOverwrite existing configuration
--skip-prebuildSkip the expo prebuild step

What the config plugin does

The Expo config plugin runs during prebuild and handles:

  • AppDelegate patching — Enables tunnel URL support for the app bundle in DEBUG mode
  • HMR reconnect injection — Auto-imports the WebSocket reconnect module into your app entry point
  • Info.plist updates — Stores expo-air config (autoShow, bubble size/color, server URLs)
  • ATS exceptions — Adds App Transport Security exceptions for tunnel domains (trycloudflare.com, loca.lt, bore.pub)

Next steps

Head to the Quick Start guide to send your first prompt.