Tired of broken React Native environments? I built a CLI to fix that

If you have worked with React Native long enough, you know the drill. An environment that worked perfectly yesterday suddenly fails to build today because of a stale ANDROID_HOME, a mismatched JDK version, or CocoaPods fighting macOS system Ruby over file permissions.

When onboarding new developers, this often turns into a wasted afternoon of troubleshooting instead of writing code.

To solve this once and for all, I built rn-env-doctor.

What is rn-env-doctor?

It is a zero-dependency CLI tool that audits your local development environment against the official React Native setup guidelines. It checks for:

• Node.js & Watchman
• JDK 17
• Android SDK components (ANDROID_HOME, platform-tools, build-tools)
• Xcode & Command Line Tools (macOS)
• CocoaPods & Ruby environment (macOS)

Instead of just throwing a red X, it pinpoints the exact misconfiguration and gives you a plain-English fix.

Key Features

1. Zero Setup Overhead: Zero dependencies. Clone and run it without installing additional npm packages first.
2. Safe by Default: It will never modify your system without explicit confirmation. You can also run it with --check for a read-only report.
3. Actionable Diagnostics: Every failing check includes clear instructions on how to resolve it.
4. Cross-Platform: Works seamlessly across macOS, Linux, and Windows.

Quick Start

You can run it directly from your terminal:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Fs0ci3ty19/rn-env-doctor.git

# Navigate into the directory
cd rn-env-doctor

# Run a check-only audit
node index.js --check

Open Source & Feedback

The project is completely open source and free to use:

🔗 GitHub Repository: https://github.com/Fs0ci3ty19/rn-env-doctor

If you give it a spin, I would love to hear your thoughts! Did it catch an issue in your setup, or is there an edge case it missed? Drop a comment below or open an issue on GitHub.