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.
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.
Before a Free Preview Walks Out via Screenshot: Detecting Screenshots and Screen Recording in Rork/Expo
How to protect paid preview images from screenshots and screen recording in a Rork/Expo app: the limits of expo-screen-capture, native isCaptured monitoring, and an iOS/Android-aware blur design.
When Your App's Launch Got Quietly Slower Release After Release — Field Notes on TTI Instrumentation and a Startup Budget for Rork Apps
Rork apps tend to start fast on day one, then drift slower as you add features and SDKs. These field notes show how to catch cold-start regressions that averages hide, trace them to a release, and stop the drift with a CI startup budget.
Before You Ask 'Are You Sure?' — Consider an Undoable Delete
Showing a confirmation dialog every time someone removes a list item trains them to tap OK without reading. Here is how to build an undoable delete in a Rork (Expo) app, and where confirmation dialogs still belong.