babel-plugin-react-native-electron

0.2.0 verified Sat Apr 25 auth: no javascript

A Babel plugin (v0.2.0, stable) that resolves imports for react-native-electron, enabling React Native components to run in Electron. It remaps react-native imports to react-native-electron and optionally transforms to CommonJS. Needed when targeting Electron with React Native codebases. Rarely updated but fills a specific niche.

Common errors

error Module not found: Can't resolve 'react-native' in '...' ↓

cause Babel is not transforming imports, so webpack tries to resolve 'react-native' directly (which fails in Electron).

fix

Ensure babel-plugin-react-native-electron is in your plugins array (e.g., .babelrc or babel.config.js) and that Babel is running on the affected files.

error SyntaxError: Unexpected token import (or require) ↓

cause Babel is not configured to handle ES module syntax for the plugin target.

fix

Add @babel/preset-env or @babel/plugin-transform-modules-commonjs to your Babel config.

error window is not defined (ReferenceError) ↓

cause Electron's renderer process does not have a DOM window during initialization if nodeIntegration is false or contextIsolation is true.

fix

Set nodeIntegration: true and contextIsolation: false in the BrowserWindow options, or use preload scripts.

Warnings

gotcha The plugin requires react-native-electron to be installed separately. ↓

fix Run 'yarn add react-native-electron' or 'npm install react-native-electron'.

gotcha The plugin only transforms imports/exports; it does not polyfill Node.js APIs (e.g., fs, path). You may need additional Webpack config or electron-renderer-target. ↓

fix Configure Webpack target: 'electron-renderer' and add node: { __dirname: false, __filename: false }.

gotcha The plugin does not handle CSS or asset imports; those must be processed separately (e.g., with Webpack). ↓

fix Add a CSS loader and file-loader/asset modules to your Webpack config.

gotcha No known breaking changes or deprecations. ↓

fix N/A

Install

npm install babel-plugin-react-native-electron

yarn add babel-plugin-react-native-electron

pnpm add babel-plugin-react-native-electron

Imports

default

wrong

import plugin from 'babel-plugin-react-native-electron'

correct

module.exports = function(babel) { ... }

Babel plugins are CommonJS modules; they cannot be imported via ESM in .babelrc.

config in .babelrc

wrong

{"plugins": ["react-native-electron"]}

correct

{"plugins": [["react-native-electron", { commonjs: true }]]}

Without the options array, the plugin may not be configured correctly.

require in babel.config.js

wrong

module.exports = { plugins: ['babel-plugin-react-native-electron'] }

correct

module.exports = { plugins: [['babel-plugin-react-native-electron', { commonjs: true }]] }

Use the full string (with babel-plugin- prefix) or the shorthand 'react-native-electron'.

Quickstart

Add the plugin to your Babel config with the commonjs option.

{
  "plugins": [
    ["react-native-electron", { "commonjs": true }]
  ]
}