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SetupManual setup

Manual setup

Everything the setup skill does, in the order it does it.

Read this project and finish setting it up. Run yarn skills:doctor first to see what is already configured, then work through whatever is still missing. Ask me for any API key you cannot obtain yourself.

You can hand over at any point. Open the project in a coding agent and say “set up the boilerplate”, and it picks up from wherever you stopped.

Before you start

Install what you need from Tooling. At minimum: Node.js 22+, yarn, git and the Supabase CLI. You can leave Xcode and Android Studio until your first device build.

You also need accounts with Supabase  and Expo .

Scaffold the project

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

The scaffolder prompts for app name, slug, bundle identifier, scheme and, optionally, your Supabase URL and anon key. It writes config.js and .env.local, and mirrors the agent skills for non-Claude agents.

The clone needs the GitHub access you got at purchase. If it fails with a 404 or a permission error, check that you are signed in as the account you bought with, and add --ssh if your GitHub access is SSH-only.

Create your Supabase project

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

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

Email and password sign-in assumes Verify email is turned off in your Supabase project’s auth settings. Leave it on and new accounts cannot sign in until they confirm, which the boilerplate’s screens do not handle.

Apply the database schema

The project includes migrations and a seed file. Link your project and reset the remote database to apply both:

npx supabase login
npx supabase link
npx supabase db reset --linked

This creates the threads, messages, generations and scans tables, their row-level security policies, and the count_monthly_usage function behind the free-tier quota.

Running Supabase locally instead? Point .env.local at your local instance first, then run supabase db reset without --linked.

Create the storage buckets

The app needs two buckets: avatars (public) and chat-media (private, owner-scoped). Create them in your project’s storage section, then set the avatar bucket name in .env.local:

EXPO_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_BUCKET_NAME="avatars"

Avatar uploads and every AI image feature fail without these. chat-media must stay private, because its policies scope each user to objects under their own user id prefix.

Set edge function secrets and deploy

At minimum you need OPENROUTER_API_KEY. Follow Edge Functions → Secrets, then deploy the functions.

A missing OPENROUTER_API_KEY produces a chat that streams nothing, with no error on screen. Verify with yarn skills:doctor rather than by testing in the app.

Create an EAS project

eas login
eas init

Then add the project id to config.js:

const config = {
    general: {
        appName: 'My App',
        slug: 'my-app',
        easProjectId: '<your-eas-project-id>',
        owner: '<your-expo-username>', // optional
    },
};

Set your app identity

If you did not pass these to the scaffolder, set them in config.js now. They must match the identifiers you register with Apple and Google.

const config = {
    general: {
        appName: 'My App',
        slug: 'my-app',
        iosBundleIdentifier: 'com.company.myapp',
        androidPackageName: 'com.company.myapp',
    },
};

Register the bundle identifier as an App ID in your Apple Developer account  before your first iOS build. Android package names are claimed on first upload to Play Console.

Run the app

NativeExpress needs a development build, because it uses native modules and custom config plugins that Expo Go  does not include. Build one in the cloud or locally, install it once, and yarn start connects to it from then on.

EAS builds it, so you need no local toolchain:

eas build --profile development

Install the result on your device, then:

yarn start

For an iOS simulator build instead, use --profile development-simulator.

Optional integrations

None of these are needed to run the app:

Run yarn skills:doctor at any point to see which are on, partial or off.

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