React Native Design Skill for AI Coding Agents

What is the react-native-design skill?

react-native-design is one skill inside the ui-design plugin of wshobson/agents, a marketplace of plugins, agents and skills built to work across several AI coding tools.

It covers eight use cases for cross-platform mobile work: building Expo and bare React Native apps, React Navigation 6 and newer, Reanimated 3 animation, StyleSheet and styled-components styling, responsive layouts, platform-specific code, gesture handling and performance work.

What changes in the agent's output

• Navigation and prop types get defined in TypeScript rather than left loosely typed, matching the skill's first best practice.
• Animations run on Reanimated's shared values and the UI thread instead of the older Animated API driven from JavaScript.
• Inline styles get replaced with StyleSheet objects, and React.memo wraps components that re-render often.
• OS-specific code branches through Platform.select rather than scattered if-checks against Platform.OS.

Common issues it covers

The skill documents five recurring problems: gesture handler conflicts between nested pan responders, navigation type errors from loose prop typing, animation performance loss from JavaScript-driven updates, memory leaks from listeners that are never removed, and font loading or safe area inconsistencies across devices.

Who the react-native-design skill is for

Best for

• Teams building a cross-platform mobile app with React Navigation and Reanimated already in the stack.
• Screens that need spring-based press or gesture animations running smoothly on real devices.
• Projects standardizing on TypeScript for navigation and component props.

Not for

• If your job is mostly building Reanimated gesture animation for Expo apps, the animate-expo skill is the better fit for that.
• When the task is turning Stitch HTML designs into native components with navigation wiring, the stitch-react-native skill is the better fit for that.
• If your job is mostly building native Expo screens with platform styling, the building-native-ui skill is the better fit for that.

Use it with UiChemy

React Native targets a mobile app shell, not a web page. For a web build from the same design language, UiChemy AI to WordPress carries a front-end build into an editable WordPress page instead.

How to install React Native Design Skill for AI Coding Agents

gh skill install wshobson/agents react-native-design

1. Install the single skill

   Run gh skill install wshobson/agents react-native-design to pull in just this skill without the rest of the ui-design plugin's agents or commands.

2. Or use the npx installer

   Run npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill react-native-design as an alternative that also reads the skill from GitHub without cloning the repository.

3. Or install the full plugin

   In Claude Code, run /plugin marketplace add wshobson/agents then /plugin install ui-design@claude-code-workflows for the whole ui-design plugin, react-native-design included.

Check that it loaded

Ask the agent to build a React Native screen with a press animation and check that it uses Reanimated shared values on the UI thread rather than the older JavaScript-driven Animated API.

Read the official instructions on GitHub

Key features

• TypeScript navigation typingNavigation params and component props get explicit types, catching a wrong param name or missing prop at compile time instead of at runtime.
• Reanimated 3 shared valuesPress and gesture animations use Reanimated's shared values and spring configs, running on the UI thread instead of blocking on JavaScript.
• StyleSheet over inline stylesStyles move into StyleSheet.create objects rather than inline style props, which keeps style objects stable across re-renders.
• React.memo for frequent re-rendersComponents that re-render often, such as list items, get wrapped in React.memo to skip unnecessary re-renders when props have not changed.
• Platform.select for OS branchingOS-specific values and components branch through Platform.select rather than scattered conditional checks against Platform.OS throughout a screen.
• FlatList for long listsLong or dynamic lists render through FlatList instead of mapping over an array inside a ScrollView, avoiding the memory and performance cost of rendering every item at once.
• Safe area handlingSafe area insets get applied explicitly so content clears notches and home indicators consistently across different device shapes.
• Real-device testing guidanceGesture and animation behavior gets verified on physical devices, since simulator behavior can differ from how gestures and spring physics feel on real hardware.

Frequently asked questions