React Native: Testing Gets Its Own Home
Today we're diving into a major architectural shift as React Native splits out its Jest testing setup into a dedicated package, plus a bunch of quality-of-life improvements across the codebase. Phil Pluckthun led the charge on extracting Jest configuration into its own home, while the team continued modernizing components and fixing animation bugs.
Duration: PT4M13S
Episode overview
This episode is a short developer briefing from React Native.
It explains recent repository work in plain language.
- Show: React Native
- Published: 2026-02-19T11:10:14Z
- Audio duration: PT4M13S
Transcript excerpt
This excerpt keeps the crawler page concise. Listen to the episode or use the RSS feed for the full update.
Hey there, fellow developers! Welcome back to another episode of React Native - I'm your host, and wow, do we have some interesting changes to dig into today. Grab your coffee because we're talking about some pretty significant moves happening in the React Native ecosystem.
So here's the big story that caught my attention - and I think you're going to find this really interesting. Phil Pluckthun just landed a pretty major architectural change that's all about making testing better for everyone. They've split out the Jest preset into its own dedicated package called…
Now, you might be thinking "wait, why is this a big deal?" Well, here's the thing - this is actually a really smart move for the ecosystem. Instead of having all the Jest configuration and dependencies bundled up with the main React Native package, they're now living in their own space. This means cleaner…
The cool part is how they handled the migration. The old `react-native/jest-preset.js` file will actually throw a helpful error if you haven't installed the new package yet, walking you through exactly what you need to do. It's that kind of thoughtful developer experience that I really appreciate - they're not just…
But…
…
Nearby episodes from React Native
- Cleanup Mode Activated
- Bug Squashing Season - When Tests Test Themselves Into Infinity
- Spring Cleaning the Legacy Code
- TypeScript Polish & Text Overflow Magic
- Monorepo Magic and Text Selection Revival
- Shadow Tree Gets Smarter with Commit Branching
- The Great Nougat Image Fix
- Animation Hooks Revolution & Performance Polish