All Articles
Designing a Referral System Without a Heavy Backend
Add a referral program to your Rork (Expo) app without standing up a fleet of servers. Covers code generation, deferred deep-link attribution on first launch, idempotent reward fulfillment that never double-pays, and basic guards against self-referral and device farming, all with working code.
When a New Architecture Migration Only Janks in Release Builds — Field Notes on Catching Silent Interop-Layer Fallback
A Rork app on the New Architecture scrolled fine in development but stuttered only in release builds on real devices. The cause: a legacy native module quietly falling back to the interop layer. Field notes on measuring it and rolling out a fix without reverting the whole app.
Rork × Vision Camera v4: A Production-Grade Camera Stack with QR, OCR, and ML Inference
Wire React Native Vision Camera v4 into a Rork project end-to-end — frame processors, ML inference, QR/OCR, plus battery and thermal tuning, a real-device test matrix, store review, and a staged rollout.
How far Rork Companion's free device testing goes — and when to pay the $99 Apple Developer Program
Rork Companion lets you test on a real device without a paid Apple Developer account. Here is exactly where the free path stops, the concrete triggers for paying the $99, and what to stage before your first signed build — from running six apps as an indie developer.
Design On-Device Core ML So Cold Start and Heat Don't Break It
Put on-device Core ML in the native Swift that Rork Max generates and you hit two walls before accuracy: the first inference is slow, and the device heats up and slows down. Here is a design built around cold start and a thermal budget, with working Swift.
Building a Live Barcode and Text Scanner in Rork Max with VisionKit's DataScanner
Add a live barcode and text scanner to your Rork Max native Swift app using VisionKit's DataScanner. Covers the SwiftUI bridge, availability handling, throttling repeated detections, and on-device verification with working code.
Write to NFC Tags with Rork Max: Add a Step Beyond Read-Only
The NFC apps Rork Max generates usually start with reading. But the experience really changes when you add writing. Here is how to write NDEF to a tag with CoreNFC, plus the pitfalls you can only catch on a real device.
Ship EAS Updates to a Few First, and Halt Automatically on Crash Rate
Because OTA updates reach everyone instantly, a bad update reaches everyone instantly too. Here is a three-layer design: ship EAS Update to a small canary, decide expand-or-halt from crash-free rate automatically, and hold a safety net on the device — with working code.
Don't Pay Out a Rewarded Ad on the Client's Word Alone — SSV Verification for a Rork (Expo) App on a Worker
Trusting the client-side 'reward earned' callback alone invites double-grants and spoofing. Here is how to wire AdMob server-side verification (SSV) into a Rork-generated Expo app, verify the signed callback on a Cloudflare Worker, and make payouts idempotent with transaction_id.
When your Rork app's production crashes arrive minified — wiring Hermes source maps and debug IDs into Sentry
Rork-generated Expo apps run on Hermes, so production crashes often arrive as index.bundle:1:284913 with no function names. Here is how to wire Hermes source maps and debug IDs into Sentry so your stack traces become readable.
What Rork's Browser Live Simulator Can Verify — and What Belongs on a Real Device
Rork's in-browser live simulator collapses the build-test loop dramatically, but it can't judge everything. Here's a clear, item-by-item split between what the simulator is enough for and what you must move to a real device through Companion.
Build Your Settings Screen From One Schema and Reuse It Across Apps
Hand-building a settings screen per app falls apart as your app count grows. Here is a schema-driven design that assembles the screen from declarative data and shares a common base across multiple apps, with working code.