Building a Mobile dApp

React Native and Expo integration with @solana/kit and MWA.

Recipe

npx create-solana-dapp@latest my-mobile-dapp
cd my-mobile-dapp && npx expo start --dev-client

When to reach for this:

• Shipping Android-first Solana consumer apps.
• Reusing kit business logic from web project in monorepo.
• Seeker ecosystem launches.

Working Example

import { useCallback, useState } from "react";
import { Button, Text, View } from "react-native";
import { createSolanaRpc, address } from "@solana/kit";
import { transact } from "@solana-mobile/mobile-wallet-adapter-protocol-web3js";
 
const rpc = createSolanaRpc("https://api.devnet.solana.com");
 
export function App() {
  const [addr, setAddr] = useState<string | null>(null);
 
  const connect = useCallback(async () => {
    await transact(async (wallet) => {
      const auth = await wallet.authorize({
        cluster: "devnet",
        identity: { name: "Demo", uri: "https://example.com", icon: "icon.png" },
      });
      setAddr(auth.accounts[0].address);
    });
  }, []);
 
  return (
    <View>
      <Button title="Connect" onPress={connect} />
      {addr && <Text>{addr}</Text>}
    </View>
  );
}

What this demonstrates:

• RN UI + kit RPC + MWA authorize in one screen.
• Dev client required for native MWA module.
• Share types with web app via monorepo packages.

Deep Dive

How It Works

• Expo prebuild generates Android project with intent filters.
• kit runs in Hermes JS engine - use bigint consistently.
• Monorepo can share Codama clients between web and mobile.
• OTA updates via Expo do not replace native wallet SDK upgrades.

Gotchas

• Expo Go without dev client - MWA native module missing. Fix: custom dev client build.
• Blocking UI thread during transact - ANR on Android. Fix: async patterns only.
• Huge bundle with all program clients - slow startup. Fix: split imports.
• Secure storage for tokens - use platform secure store for auth tokens.
• iOS assumptions - verify platform support matrix before marketing iOS.

Alternatives

FAQs

Related

• Mobile Wallet Adapter - connect API
• dApp Integration Basics - parallel web patterns
• @solana/kit Basics - kit core

Stack versions: This page was written for Agave 4.1.1, Solana CLI 3.0.10, Anchor 0.32.1, anchor-lang 0.32.1, Rust 1.91.1, @solana/kit 7.0.0, Surfpool 0.12.0, and LiteSVM 0.6.x.