Overview
How this API Reference relates to the standard WebGPU API.
WebGPU API
React Native WebGPU implements the standard WebGPU API.
Types such as GPUDevice, GPUBuffer, GPUTexture, and GPURenderPipeline behave exactly as they do on the web, so any code or tutorial written against the WebGPU specification works here unchanged.
To learn the core API, use the resources below:
- WebGPU Fundamentals: the best place to learn WebGPU from the ground up.
- MDN WebGPU reference: per-type and per-method documentation.
- WebGPU specification: the authoritative source.
Core WebGPU concepts
Understanding the foundational WebGPU objects and how they interact is essential to WebGPU development. Each concept below links to its reference on MDN.
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Instance | The entry point to WebGPU, exposed as navigator.gpu, granting access to adapters |
| Adapter | Represents a specific GPU on the device |
| Device | Your logical connection to the GPU where resources are created |
| Queue | The mechanism used to submit commands to the GPU |
| Shader Module | Your GPU code, written in the WebGPU Shading Language (WGSL) |
| Pipelines | Objects describing the entire GPU state (shaders, blending) for a task |
| Bind Groups | Ties data buffers (ex: textures) to shaders |
| Command Encoder | An object used to build a sequence of GPU commands into a command buffer |
What this reference covers
This section documents only the additions that are specific to React Native, the surface you will not find in the WebGPU specification:
Canvas: the React component that gives you a WebGPU rendering surface.GPUDeviceProvider: provides aGPUDeviceto your component tree.installWebGPU: installs the WebGPU globals on a worklet runtime.warnIfNotHardwareAccelerated: warns when the device falls back to software rendering.- Native Extensions: React Native specific helpers added to
GPUDevice.