storybookjs
Storybook for React Native
[!IMPORTANT]
This readme is for v8, for v7 docs see the v7.6 docs.
With Storybook for React Native you can design and develop individual React Native components without running your app.
If you are migrating from 7.6 to 8.3 you can find the migration guide here
For more information about storybook visit: storybook.js.org
[!NOTE]
@storybook/react-nativerequires atleast 8.3.1, if you install other storybook core packages they should be^8.3.1or newer.
Table of contents
- 🚀 Getting Started
- 📒 Writing stories
- 🔌 Addons
- 📱 Hide/Show Storybook
- ⚙️ withStorybook wrapper
- 🔧 getStorybookUI
- 🧪 Using stories in unit tests
- 🤝 Contributing
- ✨ Examples
Getting Started
New project
There is some project boilerplate with @storybook/react-native and @storybook/addon-react-native-web both already configured with a simple example.
For expo you can use this template with the following command
# With NPM
npx create-expo-app --template expo-template-storybook AwesomeStorybookFor react native cli you can use this template
npx react-native init MyApp --template react-native-template-storybookExisting project
Run init to setup your project with all the dependencies and configuration files:
npx storybook@latest initThe only thing left to do is return Storybook's UI in your app entry point (such as App.tsx) like this:
export { default } from './.storybook';Then wrap your metro config with the withStorybook function as seen below
If you want to be able to swap easily between storybook and your app, have a look at this blog post
If you want to add everything yourself check out the the manual guide here.
Additional steps: Update your metro config
We require the unstable_allowRequireContext transformer option to enable dynamic story imports based on the stories glob in main.ts. We can also call the storybook generate function from the metro config to automatically generate the storybook.requires.ts file when metro runs.
Expo
First create metro config file if you don't have it yet.
npx expo customize metro.config.jsThen wrap your config in the withStorybook function as seen below.
// metro.config.js
const path = require('path');
const { getDefaultConfig } = require('expo/metro-config');
const withStorybook = require('@storybook/react-native/metro/withStorybook');
/** @type {import('expo/metro-config').MetroConfig} */
const config = getDefaultConfig(__dirname);
module.exports = withStorybook(config, {
// Set to false to remove storybook specific options
// you can also use a env variable to set this
enabled: true,
// Path to your storybook config
configPath: path.resolve(__dirname, './.storybook'),
// Optional websockets configuration
// Starts a websocket server on the specified port and host on metro start
// websockets: {
// port: 7007,
// host: 'localhost',
// },
});React native
const { getDefaultConfig, mergeConfig } = require('@react-native/metro-config');
const path = require('path');
const withStorybook = require('@storybook/react-native/metro/withStorybook');
const defaultConfig = getDefaultConfig(__dirname);
/**
* Metro configuration
* https://reactnative.dev/docs/metro
*
* @type {import('metro-config').MetroConfig}
*/
const config = {};
// set your own config here 👆
const finalConfig = mergeConfig(defaultConfig, config);
module.exports = withStorybook(finalConfig, {
// Set to false to remove storybook specific options
// you can also use a env variable to set this
enabled: true,
// Path to your storybook config
configPath: path.resolve(__dirname, './.storybook'),
// Optional websockets configuration
// Starts a websocket server on the specified port and host on metro start
// websockets: {
// port: 7007,
// host: 'localhost',
// },
});Reanimated setup
Make sure you have react-native-reanimated in your project and the plugin setup in your babel config.
// babel.config.js
plugins: ['react-native-reanimated/plugin'],Writing stories
In storybook we use a syntax called CSF that looks like this:
import type { Meta, StoryObj } from '@storybook/react';
import { MyButton } from './Button';
const meta = {
component: MyButton,
} satisfies Meta<typeof MyButton>;
export default meta;
type Story = StoryObj<typeof meta>;
export const Basic: Story = {
args: {
text: 'Hello World',
color: 'purple',
},
};You should configure the path to your story files in the main.ts config file from the .storybook folder.
// .storybook/main.ts
import { StorybookConfig } from '@storybook/react-native';
const main: StorybookConfig = {
stories: ['../components/**/*.stories.?(ts|tsx|js|jsx)'],
addons: [],
};
export default main;Decorators and Parameters
For stories you can add decorators and parameters on the default export or on a specifc story.
import type { Meta } from '@storybook/react';
import { Button } from './Button';
const meta = {
title: 'Button',
component: Button,
decorators: [
(Story) => (
<View style={{ alignItems: 'center', justifyContent: 'center', flex: 1 }}>
<Story />
</View>
),
],
parameters: {
backgrounds: {
values: [
{ name: 'red', value: '#f00' },
{ name: 'green', value: '#0f0' },
{ name: 'blue', value: '#00f' },
],
},
},
} satisfies Meta<typeof Button>;
export default meta;For global decorators and parameters, you can add them to preview.tsx inside your .storybook folder.
// .storybook/preview.tsx
import type { Preview } from '@storybook/react';
import { withBackgrounds } from '@storybook/addon-ondevice-backgrounds';
const preview: Preview = {
decorators: [
withBackgrounds,
(Story) => (
<View style={{ flex: 1, color: 'blue' }}>
<Story />
</View>
),
],
parameters: {
backgrounds: {
default: 'plain',
values: [
{ name: 'plain', value: 'white' },
{ name: 'warm', value: 'hotpink' },
{ name: 'cool', value: 'deepskyblue' },
],
},
},
};
export default preview;Addons
The cli will install some basic addons for you such as controls and actions. Ondevice addons are addons that can render with the device ui that you see on the phone.
Currently the addons available are:
@storybook/addon-ondevice-controls: adjust your components props in realtime@storybook/addon-ondevice-actions: mock onPress calls with actions that will log information in the actions tab@storybook/addon-ondevice-notes: Add some markdown to your stories to help document their usage@storybook/addon-ondevice-backgrounds: change the background of storybook to compare the look of your component against different backgrounds
Install each one you want to use and add them to the main.ts addons list as follows:
// .storybook/main.ts
import { StorybookConfig } from '@storybook/react-native';
const main: StorybookConfig = {
// ... rest of config
addons: [
'@storybook/addon-ondevice-notes',
'@storybook/addon-ondevice-controls',
'@storybook/addon-ondevice-backgrounds',
'@storybook/addon-ondevice-actions',
],
};
export default main;Using the addons in your story
For details of each ondevice addon you can see the readme:
Hide/Show storybook
Storybook on react native is a normal React Native component that can be used or hidden anywhere in your RN application based on your own logic.
You can also create a separate app just for storybook that also works as a package for your visual components. Some have opted to toggle the storybook component by using a custom option in the react native developer menu.
withStorybook wrapper
withStorybook is a wrapper function to extend your Metro config for Storybook. It accepts your existing Metro config and an object of options for how Storybook should be started and configured.
// metro.config.js
const { getDefaultConfig } = require('expo/metro-config');
const withStorybook = require('@storybook/react-native/metro/withStorybook');
const defaultConfig = getDefaultConfig(__dirname);
module.exports = withStorybook(defaultConfig, {
enabled: true,
// See API section below for available options
});Options
enabled
Type: boolean, default: true
Determines whether the options specified are applied to the Metro config. This can be useful for project setups that use Metro both with and without Storybook and need to conditionally apply the options. In this example, it is made conditional using an environment variable:
// metro.config.js
const { getDefaultConfig } = require('expo/metro-config');
const withStorybook = require('@storybook/react-native/metro/withStorybook');
const defaultConfig = getDefaultConfig(__dirname);
module.exports = withStorybook(defaultConfig, {
enabled: process.env.WITH_STORYBOOK,
// ... other options
});onDisabledRemoveStorybook
Type: boolean, default: false
If onDisabledRemoveStorybook true and enabled is false, the storybook package will be removed from the build.
This is useful if you want to remove storybook from your production build.
useJs
Type: boolean, default: false
Generates the .storybook/storybook.requires file in JavaScript instead of TypeScript.
configPath
Type: string, default: path.resolve(process.cwd(), './.storybook')
The location of your Storybook configuration directory, which includes main.ts and other project-related files.
websockets
Type: { host: string?, port: number? }, default: undefined
If specified, create a WebSocket server on startup. This allows you to sync up multiple devices to show the same story and arg values connected to the story in the UI.
websockets.host
Type: string, default: 'localhost'
The host on which to run the WebSocket, if specified.
websockets.port
Type: number, default: 7007
The port on which to run the WebSocket, if specified.
getStorybookUI options
You can pass these parameters to getStorybookUI call in your storybook entry point:
{
initialSelection?: string | Object (undefined)
-- initialize storybook with a specific story. eg: `mybutton--largebutton` or `{ kind: 'MyButton', name: 'LargeButton' }`
storage?: Object (undefined)
-- {getItem: (key: string) => Promise<string | null>;setItem: (key: string, value: string) => Promise<void>;}
-- Custom storage to be used instead of AsyncStorage
onDeviceUI?: boolean;
-- show the ondevice ui
enableWebsockets?: boolean;
-- enable websockets for the storybook ui
query?: string;
-- query params for the websocket connection
host?: string;
-- host for the websocket connection
port?: number;
-- port for the websocket connection
secured?: boolean;
-- use secured websockets
shouldPersistSelection?: boolean;
-- store the last selected story in the device's storage
theme: Partial<Theme>;
-- theme for the storybook ui
}Using stories in unit tests
Storybook provides testing utilities that allow you to reuse your stories in external test environments, such as Jest. This way you can write unit tests easier and reuse the setup which is already done in Storybook, but in your unit tests. You can find more information about it in the portable stories section.
Contributing
We welcome contributions to Storybook!
- 📥 Pull requests and 🌟 Stars are always welcome.
- Read our contributing guide to get started, or find us on Discord and look for the react-native channel.
Looking for a first issue to tackle?
- We tag issues with Good First Issue when we think they are well suited for people who are new to the codebase or OSS in general.
- Talk to us, we'll find something to suits your skills and learning interest.
Examples
Here are some example projects to help you get started
- A mono repo setup by @axeldelafosse https://github.com/axeldelafosse/storybook-rnw-monorepo
- Expo setup https://github.com/dannyhw/expo-storybook-starter
- React native cli setup https://github.com/dannyhw/react-native-storybook-starter
- Adding a separate entry point and dev menu item in native files for RN CLI project: https://github.com/zubko/react-native-storybook-with-dev-menu
- Want to showcase your own project? open a PR and add it to the list!