how to not have expo development build page show when app starts?

Question

Currently using expo and react native. I'm using maestro for E2E testing and everytime the app launches I see the Development Build page comes up first. This is pretty annoying for E2E testing. How can I get rid of that page so that maestro tests will see the first page of the app every time on launch?

Answer 1

I had to create a build with developmentClient: false and then prebuild and then build locally and then install the builds in my simulators.

Note: You do not have to build locally but I was reaching my maximum EAS builds so I'm starting to do them locally.

These docs helped me...

https://docs.expo.dev/build/setup/

https://docs.expo.dev/build/eas-json/

https://docs.expo.dev/build-reference/apk/

https://docs.expo.dev/build-reference/simulators/

My updated eas.json

  "cli": {
    "version": ">= 3.16.0"
  },
  "build": {
    "development": {
      "developmentClient": true,
      "distribution": "internal"
    },
    "development-simulator": {
      "developmentClient": true,
      "distribution": "internal",
      "ios": {
        "simulator": true
      }
    },
    "simulator": {
      "developmentClient": false,
      "distribution": "internal",
      "ios": {
        "simulator": true
      },
      "android": {
        "buildType": "apk"
      }
    },
    "development": {
      "developmentClient": true,
      "distribution": "internal"
    },
    "preview": {
      "distribution": "internal"
    },
    "production": {}
  },
  "submit": {
    "production": {}
  }
}

Steps and commands I used to fix this were

IOS Open simulator Xcode => Open Developer Tool => Simulator

Android Open Virtual Device manager and create simulator

npx expo prebuild --clean Removed android and ios files and creates the files again

eas build -p android --profile simulator --local Locally build android simulator and device apk (no dev tools)

adb devices See what devices are online

adb install build-1690167210800.apk Install app from previous build

eas build -p ios --profile simulator --local Locally build IOS simulator build file (no dev tools) Returns something like… You can find the build artifacts in path/to/build/build-1690168440203.tar.gz

1. Extract the build artifacts: tar -xvzf build-1690168440203.tar.gz
2. Install the app on the simulator: xcrun simctl install booted abut.app

Test E2E using maestro maestro test maestro