The command name identifies the parameters that a command would expect. When the command parameter is surrounded by greater-than, less-than symbols < >, this indicates that the parameter is expected. When a parameter is surrounded by brackets [ ], this indicates that the parameter is optional.
Running react-native --help from inside a React Native project will list all of your current commands. Here is an example from version 0.56:
Usage: react-native [options] [command]
+
+ Options:
+
+ -V, --version output the version number
+ -h, --help output usage information
+
+ Commands:
+
+ start [options] starts the webserver
+ run-ios [options] builds your app and starts it on iOS simulator
+ run-android [options] builds your app and starts it on a connected Android emulator or device
+ new-library [options] generates a native library bridge
+ bundle [options] builds the javascript bundle for offline use
+ unbundle [options] builds javascript as "unbundle" for offline use
+ eject [options] Re-create the iOS and Android folders and native code
+ link [options] [packageName] links all native dependencies (updates native build files)
+ unlink [options] <packageName> unlink native dependency
+ install [options] <packageName> install and link native dependencies
+ uninstall [options] <packageName> uninstall and unlink native dependencies
+ upgrade [options] upgrade your app's template files to the latest version; run this after updating the react-native version in your package.json and running npm install
+ log-android [options] starts adb logcat
+ log-ios [options] starts iOS device syslog tail
+ dependencies [options] lists dependencies
+ info [options] Get relevant version info about OS, toolchain and libraries
+When using react-native start, its platform derivatives, and react-native bundle you can use a file to define the CLI options used by React Native by default. If you create a file rn-cli.config.js in the root of your project, it will be evaluated and options for the commands will come from there.
You can see the options for the CLI config file inside the source code for Metro here, and here is a common rn-cli.config.js used for supporting TypeScript in React Native projects:
module.exports = {
+ getTransformModulePath() {
+ return require.resolve('react-native-typescript-transformer');
+ },
+ getSourceExts() {
+ return ['ts', 'tsx'];
+ }
+}
+