flipper/docs/getting-started.md

id, title

id	title
getting-started	Getting Started

Flipper helps you debug Android and iOS apps running in an emulator/simulator or connected physical development devices. Flipper consists of two parts:

• The desktop app
• The native mobile SDKs for Android and iOS

To use Flipper, you need to add the mobile SDK to your app.

Setup

Desktop app

The desktop part of Flipper doesn't need any particular setup. Simply download the latest build for Mac, Linux or Windows and launch it. In order to work properly, Flipper requires a working installation of the Android and (if where applicable) iOS development tools on your system, as well as the OpenSSL binary on your $PATH.

Once you start Flipper and launch an emulator/simulator or connect a device, you will already be able to see the device logs in Flipper. To see app specific data, you need to integrate our native SDKs with your app.

Setup your Android app

Add the following permissions to your AndroidManifest.xml. The SDK needs these to communicate with the desktop app on localhost via adb. It won't make any external internet requests.

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE" />

It's recommended that you add the following activity to the manifest too, which can help diagnose integration issues and other problems:

<activity android:name="com.facebook.flipper.android.diagnostics.FlipperDiagnosticActivity"
        android:exported="true"/>

Flipper is distributed via JCenter. Add the dependencies to your build.gradle file. You should also explicitly depend on soloader instead of relying on transitive dependency resolution which is getting deprecated with Gradle 5.

We provide a "no-op" implementation of some oft-used Flipper interfaces you can use to make it easier to strip Flipper from your release builds.

repositories {
  jcenter()
}

dependencies {
  debugImplementation 'com.facebook.flipper:flipper:0.25.0'
  debugImplementation 'com.facebook.soloader:soloader:0.5.1'

  releaseImplementation 'com.facebook.flipper:flipper-noop:0.25.0'
}

Now you can initialize Flipper in your Application's onCreate method, which involves initializing SoLoader (for loading the C++ part of Flipper) and starting a FlipperClient.

import com.facebook.flipper.android.AndroidFlipperClient;
import com.facebook.flipper.android.utils.FlipperUtils;
import com.facebook.flipper.core.FlipperClient;

public class MyApplication extends Application {

  @Override
  public void onCreate() {
    super.onCreate();
    SoLoader.init(this, false);

    if (BuildConfig.DEBUG && FlipperUtils.shouldEnableFlipper(this)) {
      final FlipperClient client = AndroidFlipperClient.getInstance(this);
      client.addPlugin(new InspectorFlipperPlugin(this, DescriptorMapping.withDefaults()));
      client.start();
    }
  }
}

Android Snapshots

Feeling adventurous? We publish Android snapshot releases directly off of master.

You can get the latest version by adding the Maven Snapshot repository to your sources and pointing to the most recent -SNAPSHOT version.

repositories {
  maven { url 'https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots/' }
}

dependencies {
  debugImplementation 'com.facebook.flipper:flipper:0.25.1-SNAPSHOT'
  debugImplementation 'com.facebook.soloader:soloader:0.5.1'

  releaseImplementation 'com.facebook.flipper:flipper-noop:0.25.1-SNAPSHOT'
}

Setup your iOS app

We support both Swift and Objective-C for Flipper with CocoaPods as build and distribution mechanism. For CocoaPods 1.7+ following is the configuration.

CocoaPods

project 'MyApp.xcodeproj'
flipperkit_version = '0.25.0'

target 'MyApp' do
  platform :ios, '9.0'
  # use_framework!
  pod 'FlipperKit', '~>' + flipperkit_version
  pod 'FlipperKit/FlipperKitLayoutComponentKitSupport', '~>' + flipperkit_version
  pod 'FlipperKit/SKIOSNetworkPlugin', '~>' + flipperkit_version
  pod 'FlipperKit/FlipperKitUserDefaultsPlugin', '~>' + flipperkit_version

  # If you use `use_frameworks!` in your Podfile,
  # uncomment the below $static_framework array and also
  # the pre_install section.  This will cause Flipper and
  # it's dependencies to be built as a static library and all other pods to
  # be dynamic.
  # $static_framework = ['FlipperKit', 'Flipper', 'Flipper-Folly',
  #   'CocoaAsyncSocket', 'ComponentKit', 'DoubleConversion',
  #   'glog', 'Flipper-PeerTalk', 'Flipper-RSocket', 'Yoga', 'YogaKit',
  #   'CocoaLibEvent', 'openssl-ios-bitcode', 'boost-for-react-native']
  #
  # pre_install do |installer|
  #   Pod::Installer::Xcode::TargetValidator.send(:define_method, :verify_no_static_framework_transitive_dependencies) {}
  #   installer.pod_targets.each do |pod|
  #       if $static_framework.include?(pod.name)
  #         def pod.build_type;
  #           Pod::Target::BuildType.static_library
  #         end
  #       end
  #     end
  # end

  # This post_install hook adds the -DFB_SONARKIT_ENABLED=1 flag to OTHER_CFLAGS, necessary to expose Flipper classes in the header files
  post_install do |installer|
    installer.pods_project.targets.each do |target|
      if target.name == 'YogaKit'
        target.build_configurations.each do |config|
          config.build_settings['SWIFT_VERSION'] = '4.1'
        end
      end
    end
    file_name = Dir.glob("*.xcodeproj")[0]
    app_project = Xcodeproj::Project.open(file_name)
    app_project.native_targets.each do |target|
      target.build_configurations.each do |config|
        cflags = config.build_settings['OTHER_CFLAGS'] || '$(inherited) '
        unless cflags.include? '-DFB_SONARKIT_ENABLED=1'
          puts 'Adding -DFB_SONARKIT_ENABLED=1 in OTHER_CFLAGS...'
          cflags << '-DFB_SONARKIT_ENABLED=1'
        end
        config.build_settings['OTHER_CFLAGS'] = cflags
      end
      app_project.save
    end
    installer.pods_project.save
   end
end

project 'MyApp.xcodeproj'
flipperkit_version = '0.25.0'

target 'MyApp' do
  platform :ios, '9.0'

  pod 'FlipperKit', '~>' + flipperkit_version
  # Layout and network plugins are not yet supported for swift projects
  pod 'FlipperKit/FlipperKitLayoutComponentKitSupport', '~>' + flipperkit_version
  pod 'FlipperKit/SKIOSNetworkPlugin', '~>' + flipperkit_version
  pod 'FlipperKit/FlipperKitUserDefaultsPlugin', '~>' + flipperkit_version

  # If you use `use_frameworks!` in your Podfile,
  # uncomment the below $static_framework array and also
  # the pre_install section.  This will cause Flipper and
  # it's dependencies to be built as a static library and all other pods to
  # be dynamic.
  # $static_framework = ['FlipperKit', 'Flipper', 'Flipper-Folly',
  #   'CocoaAsyncSocket', 'ComponentKit', 'DoubleConversion',
  #   'glog', 'Flipper-PeerTalk', 'Flipper-RSocket', 'Yoga', 'YogaKit',
  #   'CocoaLibEvent', 'openssl-ios-bitcode', 'boost-for-react-native']
  #
  # pre_install do |installer|
  #   Pod::Installer::Xcode::TargetValidator.send(:define_method, :verify_no_static_framework_transitive_dependencies) {}
  #   installer.pod_targets.each do |pod|
  #       if $static_framework.include?(pod.name)
  #         def pod.build_type;
  #           Pod::Target::BuildType.static_library
  #         end
  #       end
  #     end
  # end


  # This post_install hook adds the -DFB_SONARKIT_ENABLED flag to OTHER_SWIFT_FLAGS, necessary to build swift target
  post_install do |installer|
    installer.pods_project.targets.each do |target|
      if target.name == 'YogaKit'
        target.build_configurations.each do |config|
          config.build_settings['SWIFT_VERSION'] = '4.1'
        end
      end
    end
    file_name = Dir.glob("*.xcodeproj")[0]
    app_project = Xcodeproj::Project.open(file_name)
    app_project.native_targets.each do |target|
        target.build_configurations.each do |config|
          if (config.build_settings['OTHER_SWIFT_FLAGS'])
            unless config.build_settings['OTHER_SWIFT_FLAGS'].include? '-DFB_SONARKIT_ENABLED'
              puts 'Adding -DFB_SONARKIT_ENABLED ...'
              swift_flags = config.build_settings['OTHER_SWIFT_FLAGS']
              if swift_flags.split.last != '-Xcc'
                config.build_settings['OTHER_SWIFT_FLAGS'] << ' -Xcc'
              end
              config.build_settings['OTHER_SWIFT_FLAGS'] << ' -DFB_SONARKIT_ENABLED'
            end
          else
            puts 'OTHER_SWIFT_FLAGS does not exist thus assigning it to `$(inherited) -Xcc -DFB_SONARKIT_ENABLED`'
            config.build_settings['OTHER_SWIFT_FLAGS'] = '$(inherited) -Xcc -DFB_SONARKIT_ENABLED'
          end
          app_project.save
        end
      end
      installer.pods_project.save
  end
end

You need to compile your project with the FB_SONARKIT_ENABLED=1 compiler flag. The above post_install hook adds this compiler flag to your project settings.

On the first run of pod install, FB_SONARKIT_ENABLED=1 may not be added in the "Build Settings" of your project, but in all the subsequent runs of pod install, the above post_install hook successfully adds the compiler flag. So before running your app, make sure that FB_SONARKIT_ENABLED=1 is present in OTHER_CFLAGS and OTHER_SWIFT_FLAGS for Objective-C and Swift projects respectively.

Install the dependencies by running pod install. You can now import and initialize Flipper in your AppDelegate.

#import <FlipperKit/FlipperClient.h>
#import <FlipperKitLayoutPlugin/FlipperKitLayoutPlugin.h>
#import <FlipperKitLayoutComponentKitSupport/FlipperKitLayoutComponentKitSupport.h>
#import <FlipperKitUserDefaultsPlugin/FKUserDefaultsPlugin.h>
#import <FlipperKitNetworkPlugin/FlipperKitNetworkPlugin.h>
#import <SKIOSNetworkPlugin/SKIOSNetworkAdapter.h>

@implementation AppDelegate

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{
  FlipperClient *client = [FlipperClient sharedClient];
  SKDescriptorMapper *layoutDescriptorMapper = [[SKDescriptorMapper alloc] initWithDefaults];
  [FlipperKitLayoutComponentKitSupport setUpWithDescriptorMapper: layoutDescriptorMapper];
  [client addPlugin: [[FlipperKitLayoutPlugin alloc] initWithRootNode: application
                                                 withDescriptorMapper: layoutDescriptorMapper]];

  [client addPlugin:[[FKUserDefaultsPlugin alloc] initWithSuiteName:nil]];
  [client addPlugin: [[FlipperKitNetworkPlugin alloc] initWithNetworkAdapter:[SKIOSNetworkAdapter new]]];
  [client start];
  ...
}
@end

import UIKit
import FlipperKit
@UIApplicationMain
class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {

  var window: UIWindow?


  func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {
    // Override point for customization after application launch.
    let client = FlipperClient.shared()
    let layoutDescriptorMapper = SKDescriptorMapper(defaults: ())
    FlipperKitLayoutComponentKitSupport.setUpWith(layoutDescriptorMapper)
    client?.add(FlipperKitLayoutPlugin(rootNode: application, with: layoutDescriptorMapper!))
    client?.start()
    return true
  }
}

Ready for takeoff

Finally, you need to add plugins to your Flipper client. Above we have only added the Layout Inspector plugin to get you started. See Network Plugin and Layout Inspector Plugin for information on how to add them, and also enable Litho or ComponentKit support. You can check the sample apps in the GitHub repo for examples of integrating other plugins.

Setup your React Native app

Inspired by a blog post by Ram N.

Integrating Flipper with React Native is a bit different than with a native app.

Android

First, add this line to your android/gradle.properties:

# On Android, React Native currently has issues with higher versions
FLIPPER_VERSION=0.23.4

Add the following permissions to your AndroidManifest.xml. The SDK needs these to communicate with the desktop app on localhost via adb. It won't make any external internet requests.

android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE" />

It's recommended that you add the following activity to the manifest too, which can help diagnose integration issues and other problems:

<activity android:name="com.facebook.flipper.android.diagnostics.FlipperDiagnosticActivity"
        android:exported="true"/>

Flipper is distributed via JCenter. Add the dependencies to your build.gradle file. You should also explicitly depend on soloader instead of relying on transitive dependency resolution which is getting deprecated with Gradle 5.

We provide a "no-op" implementation of some oft-used Flipper interfaces you can use to make it easier to strip Flipper from your release builds.

android/app/build.gradle

android {
  packagingOptions {
    ...
    // This line is required to prevent React Native from crash
    pickFirst '**/libc++_shared.so'
  }
}

dependencies {
  ...
  debugImplementation("com.facebook.flipper:flipper:${FLIPPER_VERSION}") {
    exclude group:'com.facebook.yoga'
    exclude group:'com.facebook.flipper', module: 'fbjni'
    exclude group:'com.facebook.litho', module: 'litho-annotations'
    exclude group:'com.squareup.okhttp3'
  }
}

Now, we create a new file inside android/app/src/debug/java/com/yourappname/ReactNativeFlipper.java.

These are the suggested plugins integrations:

• Layout Inspector
• Network
• Databases
• Images
• Shared Preferences
• Crash Reporter
• React devtools

package com.yourappname;

import android.content.Context;
import com.facebook.flipper.android.AndroidFlipperClient;
import com.facebook.flipper.android.utils.FlipperUtils;
import com.facebook.flipper.core.FlipperClient;
import com.facebook.flipper.plugins.crashreporter.CrashReporterPlugin;
import com.facebook.flipper.plugins.databases.DatabasesFlipperPlugin;
import com.facebook.flipper.plugins.fresco.FrescoFlipperPlugin;
import com.facebook.flipper.plugins.inspector.DescriptorMapping;
import com.facebook.flipper.plugins.inspector.InspectorFlipperPlugin;
import com.facebook.flipper.plugins.network.FlipperOkhttpInterceptor;
import com.facebook.flipper.plugins.network.NetworkFlipperPlugin;
import com.facebook.flipper.plugins.react.ReactFlipperPlugin;
import com.facebook.flipper.plugins.sharedpreferences.SharedPreferencesFlipperPlugin;
import com.facebook.react.ReactInstanceManager;
import com.facebook.react.bridge.ReactContext;
import com.facebook.react.modules.network.NetworkingModule;
import okhttp3.OkHttpClient;

public class ReactNativeFlipper {

  public static void initializeFlipper(Context context, final ReactInstanceManager reactInstanceManager) {
    if (!FlipperUtils.shouldEnableFlipper(context)) {
      return;
    }
    final FlipperClient client = AndroidFlipperClient.getInstance(context);

    client.addPlugin(new InspectorFlipperPlugin(context, DescriptorMapping.withDefaults()));
    client.addPlugin(new ReactFlipperPlugin());
    client.addPlugin(new DatabasesFlipperPlugin(context));
    client.addPlugin(new SharedPreferencesFlipperPlugin(context));
    client.addPlugin(CrashReporterPlugin.getInstance());

    final NetworkFlipperPlugin networkFlipperPlugin = new NetworkFlipperPlugin();
    NetworkingModule.setCustomClientBuilder(
        new NetworkingModule.CustomClientBuilder() {
          @Override
          public void apply(OkHttpClient.Builder builder) {
            builder.addNetworkInterceptor(new FlipperOkhttpInterceptor(networkFlipperPlugin));
          }
        });
    client.addPlugin(networkFlipperPlugin);
    client.start();

    // Fresco Plugin needs to ensure that ImagePipelineFactory is initialized
    // Hence we run if after all native modules have been initialized
    ReactContext reactContext = reactInstanceManager.getCurrentReactContext();
    if (reactContext == null) {
      reactInstanceManager.addReactInstanceEventListener(
          new ReactInstanceManager.ReactInstanceEventListener() {
            @Override
            public void onReactContextInitialized(ReactContext reactContext) {
              reactInstanceManager.removeReactInstanceEventListener(this);
              reactContext.runOnNativeModulesQueueThread(
                  new Runnable() {
                    @Override
                    public void run() {
                      client.addPlugin(new FrescoFlipperPlugin());
                    }
                  });
            }
          });
    } else {
      client.addPlugin(new FrescoFlipperPlugin());
    }
  }
}

Now you can initialize Flipper in your Application's onCreate method, which involves initializing SoLoader (for loading the C++ part of Flipper) and starting a FlipperClient.

For this, we edit the android/app/src/main/java/com/yourappname/MainApplication.java file.

package com.yourappname;

import ...
import com.facebook.react.ReactInstanceManager;

public class MainApplication extends Application implements ReactApplication {
  ...

  @Override
  public void onCreate() {
    ...
    initializeFlipper(this, getReactNativeHost().getReactInstanceManager());
  }

  /**
   * Loads Flipper in React Native templates. Call this in the onCreate method with something like
   * initializeFlipper(this, getReactNativeHost().getReactInstanceManager());
   *
   * @param context
   */
  private static void initializeFlipper(Context context, ReactInstanceManager reactInstanceManager) {
    if (BuildConfig.DEBUG) {
      try {
        Class<?> aClass = Class.forName("com.yourappname.ReactNativeFlipper");
        aClass
          .getMethod("initializeFlipper", Context.class, ReactInstanceManager.class)
          .invoke(null, context, reactInstanceManager);
      } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
      } catch (NoSuchMethodException e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
      } catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
      } catch (InvocationTargetException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
      }
    }
  }
}

Finally, open the Flipper desktop app, and run yarn android in your terminal.

iOS

We support both Swift and Objective-C for Flipper with CocoaPods as build and distribution mechanism. For CocoaPods 1.7+ following is the configuration.

CocoaPods

ios/Podfile

platform :ios, '9.0'

def flipper_pods()
  flipperkit_version = '0.25'
  pod 'FlipperKit', '~>' + flipperkit_version, :configuration => 'Debug'
  pod 'FlipperKit/FlipperKitLayoutPlugin', '~>' + flipperkit_version, :configuration => 'Debug'
  pod 'FlipperKit/SKIOSNetworkPlugin', '~>' + flipperkit_version, :configuration => 'Debug'
  pod 'FlipperKit/FlipperKitUserDefaultsPlugin', '~>' + flipperkit_version, :configuration => 'Debug'
end

# Post Install processing for Flipper
def flipper_post_install(installer)
  installer.pods_project.targets.each do |target|
    if target.name == 'YogaKit'
      target.build_configurations.each do |config|
        config.build_settings['SWIFT_VERSION'] = '4.1'
      end
    end
  end
  file_name = Dir.glob("*.xcodeproj")[0]
  app_project = Xcodeproj::Project.open(file_name)
  app_project.native_targets.each do |target|
    target.build_configurations.each do |config|
      cflags = config.build_settings['OTHER_CFLAGS'] || '$(inherited) '
      unless cflags.include? '-DFB_SONARKIT_ENABLED=1'
        puts 'Adding -DFB_SONARKIT_ENABLED=1 in OTHER_CFLAGS...'
        cflags << '-DFB_SONARKIT_ENABLED=1'
      end
      config.build_settings['OTHER_CFLAGS'] = cflags
    end
    app_project.save
  end
  installer.pods_project.save
end

target 'your-app-name' do
  ...

  target 'your-app-nameTests' do
    inherit! :complete
    # Pods for testing
  end

  # For enabling Flipper.
  # Note that if you use_framework!, flipper will no work.
  # Disable these lines if you are doing use_framework!
  flipper_pods()
  post_install do |installer|
    flipper_post_install(installer)
  end
end

You need to compile your project with the FB_SONARKIT_ENABLED=1 compiler flag. The above post_install hook adds this compiler flag to your project settings.

On the first run of pod install, FB_SONARKIT_ENABLED=1 may not be added in the "Build Settings" of your project, but in all the subsequent runs of pod install, the above post_install hook successfully adds the compiler flag. So before running your app, make sure that FB_SONARKIT_ENABLED=1 is present in OTHER_CFLAGS and OTHER_SWIFT_FLAGS for Objective-C and Swift projects respectively.

Install the dependencies by running cd ios && pod install. You can now import and initialize Flipper in your ios/your-app-name/AppDelegate.m.

The code below enables the following integrations:

• Layout Inspector
• Network
• Shared Preferences
• Crash Reporter

...
#ifdef DEBUG
  #import <FlipperKit/FlipperClient.h>
  #import <FlipperKitLayoutPlugin/FlipperKitLayoutPlugin.h>
  #import <FlipperKitLayoutPlugin/SKDescriptorMapper.h>
  #import <FlipperKitUserDefaultsPlugin/FKUserDefaultsPlugin.h>
  #import <FlipperKitNetworkPlugin/FlipperKitNetworkPlugin.h>
  #import <SKIOSNetworkPlugin/SKIOSNetworkAdapter.h>
  #import <FlipperKitNetworkPlugin/FlipperKitNetworkPlugin.h>
#endif

@implementation AppDelegate

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{
  [self initializeFlipper:application];
  ...
}

- (void) initializeFlipper:(UIApplication *)application {
  #ifdef DEBUG
    FlipperClient *client = [FlipperClient sharedClient];
    SKDescriptorMapper \*layoutDescriptorMapper = [[SKDescriptorMapper alloc] initWithDefaults];
    [client addPlugin: [[FlipperKitLayoutPlugin alloc] initWithRootNode: application withDescriptorMapper: layoutDescriptorMapper]];
    [client addPlugin:[[FKUserDefaultsPlugin alloc] initWithSuiteName:nil]]; [client start];
    [client addPlugin: [[FlipperKitNetworkPlugin alloc] initWithNetworkAdapter:[SKIOSNetworkAdapter new]]];
    [client start];
  #endif
}

@end

Lastly, open the Flipper desktop app, and run yarn ios in your terminal.

• If you do not use CocoaPods as a dependency management tool then currently there is no way to integrate FlipperKit other than manually including all the dependencies and building it.
• For Android, Flipper works with both emulators and physical devices connected through USB. However on iOS, we don't yet support physical devices.

Having trouble?

See the troubleshooting page for help with known problems.