CocoaPods

CocoaPods is a dependency manager for iOS, written in Ruby. React Native uses it to pull React Native’s own iOS code, Hermes and the native half of every library you install into an Xcode workspace. The result lives in ios/Pods/.

The everyday command is pod install, run from the ios/ folder. It reads the Podfile, resolves versions, writes Podfile.lock and regenerates YourApp.xcworkspace. Each library describes itself in a .podspec file, and autolinking finds those podspecs in node_modules so you don’t list them by hand.

When to run it:

• After adding, removing or upgrading any package that contains native iOS code.
• After upgrading React Native or the Expo SDK.
• After pulling a branch where someone else changed native dependencies.

If you forget, the JavaScript side expects a module the binary doesn’t contain, and the app fails at launch or when that module is first used.

Common pitfalls:

• Ruby version drift. Use the project’s Gemfile and run bundle exec pod install so everyone uses the same CocoaPods version.
• Stale spec cache. “Could not find compatible versions” often needs pod install --repo-update.
• Opening the wrong file. After CocoaPods runs, build from the .xcworkspace in Xcode.

With Expo’s Continuous Native Generation, npx expo prebuild and npx expo run:ios run pod install for you, and EAS Build does it in the cloud.

CocoaPods is in maintenance mode, and its maintainers have announced that the central Specs repository will become read-only. Apple’s Swift Package Manager is the long-term direction, and the React Native ecosystem is gradually preparing for it, but today most React Native iOS builds still go through CocoaPods.