weshipit.today — React Native Newsletter — 2026-W9

Week of February 23–March 1, 2026

Items This Week

#	Title	Label	Link
1	Expo SDK 55 Released	🟧 EXPO	Read
2	Ship smaller OTA updates: bundle diffing comes to EAS Update in SDK 55	🟧 EXPO	Read
3	How to upgrade to Expo SDK 55	🟧 EXPO	Read
4	5 OTA Update best practices every mobile team should know	🟧 EXPO	Read
5	The React Foundation Has Launched	⚛️ REACT	Read
6	React Native Comes to Meta Quest	🟦 RN	Read
7	State of React Native 2025 — Survey Results	🟦 RN	Read
8	react-native-enriched-markdown 0.3: GFM + RTL support	🟦 RN	Read
9	Creating Query Abstractions with TanStack Query	⚛️ REACT	Read
10	Life's Too Short to Hand-Write API Types: OpenAPI-Driven React	⚛️ REACT	Read

5-Day Action Plan

🟧 Chunk 1 — Upgrade to Expo SDK 55 with New Architecture

Goal: Migrate the project to Expo SDK 55 (React Native 0.83, React 19.2) and drop the legacy architecture — ensuring the app runs on the latest, fully-supported stack and benefits from all New Architecture performance improvements.

Scope:

Run npx expo install expo@55 and follow the official upgrade guide
Migrate any legacy architecture-only dependencies to New Architecture equivalents
Opt into Hermes v1 via app.json config flag
Update metro.config.js, babel.config.js, and any deprecated APIs flagged during upgrade
Run the full test suite and smoke-test on iOS and Android simulators
Update CHANGELOG.md with breaking changes and resolved deprecations

Out of scope: Expo Router v55 navigation changes (separate chunk), EAS Update bundle diffing (Chunk 2).

Dependencies: None — isolated upgrade branch, no production impact until merged.

Acceptance criteria:

App builds and runs on both iOS and Android with zero legacy architecture warnings
React Native version reads 0.83.x in the app's package.json
CHANGELOG.md documents every breaking change encountered
A non-technical stakeholder can navigate the full app flow without errors

Estimated effort: M

🟧 Chunk 2 — Enable EAS Update Bundle Diffing for Smaller OTA Payloads

Goal: Reduce OTA update download sizes by up to 75% by activating bundle diffing in EAS Update — directly improving update adoption rates for users on slower networks.

Scope:

Upgrade expo-updates to the SDK 55 version
Enable bundle diffing in eas.json update configuration
Push a test OTA update to the preview channel and measure the diff size vs. the full bundle
Document the before/after payload size in a EAS-UPDATE.md file
Verify that devices on the preview channel receive the patch correctly

Out of scope: Gradual rollout rules, rollback automation (addressed in Chunk 3), production channel rollout.

Dependencies: Expo SDK 55 must be installed (Chunk 1).

Acceptance criteria:

A test OTA update is received by a device as a diff patch, not a full bundle
Download size is measurably smaller than the equivalent full bundle (log the delta)
EAS-UPDATE.md records baseline vs. diffed payload sizes
No crashes or visual regressions on the updated device

Estimated effort: S

🟧 Chunk 3 — Implement OTA Update Best Practices (Channels, Rollback & Fingerprint)

Goal: Harden the OTA update strategy by applying the 5 best practices published by Expo — giving the team a safe, predictable release process and the ability to instantly roll back a bad update.

Scope:

Configure preview, staging, and production update channels in eas.json
Integrate fingerprint-based update detection using expo-updates API to prevent mismatched updates
Implement a gradual rollout (10% → 50% → 100%) for the production channel
Add a one-command rollback script to package.json (npm run update:rollback)
Document the full update workflow in docs/ota-strategy.md

Out of scope: CI/CD automation of rollouts (future work), A/B testing of update content.

Dependencies: Expo SDK 55 and EAS Update bundle diffing (Chunks 1 & 2).

Acceptance criteria:

Three update channels exist and are named correctly in the EAS dashboard
A fingerprint mismatch is gracefully handled (no crash, user prompted to update)
Gradual rollout is verified by deploying to 10% of the preview channel
npm run update:rollback successfully points the production channel back to the previous bundle
docs/ota-strategy.md is readable by a non-technical stakeholder

Estimated effort: M

🟦 Chunk 4 — Audit Project Stack Against State of React Native 2025 Results

Goal: Benchmark the project's current tooling, libraries, and architecture choices against the community consensus from the State of React Native 2025 survey — identifying gaps and quick wins to align with industry best practices.

Scope:

Read through the State of React Native 2025 results focusing on: architecture adoption, navigation, state management, testing, and styling sections
Map each major category to the project's current choice
Identify 3 "high-retention / high-usage" libraries the project is not yet using
Write a STACK-AUDIT.md with a two-column table: Current choice vs. Community favourite
Open one follow-up issue per identified gap (labelled tech-debt)

Out of scope: Implementing the identified changes (tracked as separate issues).

Dependencies: None — purely analytical, no code changes required.

Acceptance criteria:

STACK-AUDIT.md covers all 5 survey categories with current vs. recommended choices
At least 3 follow-up tech-debt issues are created
A non-technical stakeholder can read the audit summary in under 5 minutes
The audit is reviewed and acknowledged by a second team member

Estimated effort: S

⚛️ Chunk 5 — Migrate API Types to OpenAPI-Driven Generation with Hey API + Zod

Goal: Eliminate hand-written API types and frontend/backend type drift by generating all API client types automatically from the OpenAPI specification — reducing bugs and saving hours of manual type maintenance per sprint.

Scope:

Install @hey-api/openapi-ts and configure it to point to the project's OpenAPI spec
Generate TypeScript types and a typed fetch client for all existing API endpoints
Replace the top 3 hand-written type files with generated equivalents
Add Zod schemas for runtime validation on the 3 most-used API response shapes
Add a pnpm generate:api script to package.json and document it in README.md
Set up MSW handlers using the generated types for existing unit tests

Out of scope: Migrating all API calls in one go (incremental migration), CI enforcement of schema freshness (future work).

Dependencies: An OpenAPI spec (.json or .yaml) must exist or be accessible from the backend team.

Acceptance criteria:

pnpm generate:api runs without errors and produces updated type files
The 3 replaced type files are deleted and replaced by imports from the generated client
Zod validation catches a deliberately malformed API response in a unit test
MSW handlers use generated types with no TypeScript errors
README.md documents the generation workflow for new developers

Estimated effort: M