Custom React Native Template — Setup Guide

This guide walks through creating your own reusable React Native template/boilerplate, similar to santis-world-template.

1. Create the template package

mkdir your-template-name
cd your-template-name
npm init -y

Open the generated package.json and:

• Remove/modify fields as needed (description, author, license, etc.)
• Add the following so only the template files are published/used:

"files": [
  "template",
  "template.config.js"
]

2. Create the template config

Create a file named template.config.js in the root:

module.exports = {
  placeholderName: 'SantisWorld',
  templateDir: './template',
};

3. Match the placeholder name

placeholderName should match the name of the project you scaffold in the next step (it doesn't have to match your final project name later — this is just the name used internally when generating the template).

4. Scaffold the React Native app into the template directory

From the project root:

npx @react-native-community/cli init SantisWorld --directory template

This creates a fresh bare React Native app inside ./template.

5. Fix a known CLI/npm issue with .gitignore

Reference: (https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v11/using-npm/developers)

Keeping files out of your Package

Follow their recommendation OR below

The RN CLI generates a .gitignore inside template/ that can get excluded when packaging, since npm ignores .gitignore files by default when publishing. Rename it so it's preserved:

mv template/.gitignore template/_gitignore

To verify it's there:

ls -la template

Note: when your template generator copies these files into a new project, it should rename _gitignore back to .gitignore at generation time.

6. Build your boilerplate code

Add your actual folder structure, design system, navigation setup, state management, and any other opinionated defaults inside template/ — this is the code every new project scaffolded from this template will start with.