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Posts tagged: Developer Experience

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React Native tooling

Why DEV is false in release builds, and how we gated dev tools by config instead

7 min read

Written by: Jonathan Reis on Jul 5, 2026

A developer shortcut hidden behind __DEV__ disappeared exactly when we needed it in a release build. Here is why that happens in React Native and how we moved the gate to runtime config.

React Native Expo Developer Experience Testing Mobile Games

Posts tagged: Developer Experience

Why __DEV__ is false in release builds, and how we gated dev tools by config instead

Why DEV is false in release builds, and how we gated dev tools by config instead