Manual setup

Scaffold the project

npx nativeexpress@latest create-app my-app
cd my-app
yarn install

The scaffolder asks for two things: the app name and your Expo account username. From them it derives the slug, URL scheme, iOS bundle identifier and Android package name, shows the four values once, and lets you confirm or correct them. The derivation rules are the ones the setup skill uses. It writes the result into config.js, and optionally your Supabase URL and anon key into .env.local; if you skipped those, copy .env.example to .env.local before the next step.

Pass --owner <username> and -y to accept the derived values without prompts, or pin a value with --slug, --scheme, --ios-bundle-identifier or --android-package-name.

When it finishes, it prints the prompt that starts the setup skill’s discovery phase. You are doing that by hand here, so the next two steps replace it.

Write the product brief

Open PRODUCT.md and replace the boilerplate’s example values with your own, deleting each section’s TODO line as you go. The product brief page lists the sections and the allowed values. Coding agents and yarn skills:doctor read the file; even without an agent, it is the one place your decisions are written down.

Remove what you will not use

yarn remove:feature scan --dry-run
yarn remove:integration onesignal --dry-run

Run the removals for every feature marked remove and every integration marked off in the brief, without --dry-run once the list looks right. Do this before configuring anything, so there is nothing to configure for what is gone. Removing features and integrations covers what each script changes and what is not removable.

Create your Supabase project

Create a project in the Supabase dashboard , then copy its project URL and public anon or publishable key into .env.local:

EXPO_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL="<your-supabase-url>"
EXPO_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY="<your-public-supabase-key>"

Keep Confirm email enabled if you want verified addresses. The app has a check-your-inbox screen and a resend action. Configure email delivery and redirect URLs as described in Authentication.

Apply the database schema

Link the CLI to the project you just created and apply its initial migration:

supabase login
supabase link
supabase db push --linked

The migration creates the AI tables, row-level security policies and count_monthly_usage function. It also creates the public avatars bucket and private chat-media bucket with their access policies. No seed data is included.

Confirm that the migration is applied:

supabase migration list --linked

Check that both buckets appear in Supabase Storage, then generate database types for your project.

For a local Supabase instance, follow local development and use its URL and public key in .env.local.

Set edge function secrets and deploy

Set OPENROUTER_API_KEY in your project’s function secrets, then deploy chat, generate, identify and delete-account, minus any function whose feature you removed. Follow Secrets and Deploy edge functions.

OpenRouter must accept requests for the models you use. Check the key and available credit if chat returns a provider error. See AI troubleshooting.

Check your app identity

The scaffolder wrote these general values in config.js. Review them before anything is built or submitted:

For iOS device builds, EAS or Xcode can register your bundle identifier during signing. You can also register it manually as an App ID in your Apple Developer account . Use the same Android package name when creating your Play Store app.

Set profilePage.supportPage and profilePage.contactPage to your own URLs before shipping. Configure the googleOauth values if you enable Google sign-in.

Create an EAS project

eas login
eas init --account <owner> --non-interactive

Use the same account name as general.owner. The command ends in a red error by design: EAS creates the project, then cannot write the project ID into this app’s dynamic app.config.js and exits with Cannot automatically write to dynamic config. Nothing failed. Copy the UUID from the projectId line it printed into general.easProjectId in config.js. Running it again is safe; it finds the existing project and prints the same ID.

Confirm the link:

eas project:info

It prints fullName @<owner>/<slug> and the ID, and errors if general.owner or general.slug in config.js differ from the project on expo.dev. Fix config.js in that case, not the server.

Before a cloud build, configure EAS environment variables. The development profiles use the development environment. Your local .env.local file is excluded from the build upload.

Run the app

NativeExpress needs a development build because its native modules and config plugins are not included in Expo Go . Choose a cloud or local build:

eas build --profile development

yarn start

npx expo run:ios

npx expo run:android

Verify

Run yarn skills:doctor and review missing values or unavailable checks. In the app, complete onboarding, sign up and confirm your email if required. Sign in and send a message in Chat using a free model. A streamed reply confirms that authentication, the database and the chat function can reach the AI provider.