Expo

The React Native WebGPU Expo template includes raw WebGPU, Three.js, and React Three Fiber examples for iOS, Android, and web.

Create a project

npx create-expo-app@latest my-webgpu-app --template https://github.com/wcandillon/react-native-webgpu/tree/main/apps/expo-webgpu

Open the app and choose an example from the menu:

• WebGPU triangle uses react-native-webgpu directly and renders WGSL without a 3D framework.
• Three.js imports three/webgpu and creates the scene imperatively.
• React Three Fiber uses declarative JSX with the standard Fiber module build.

The template installs the required Reanimated and Worklets peers, enables the react-native-webgpu config plugin, and includes the Metro resolver used by the React Three Fiber example.

For a walkthrough of the React Three Fiber example, watch the video below.

Config plugin

react-native-webgpu ships its own Expo config plugin. Add it to the plugins array of your app config:

{
  "expo": {
    "plugins": ["react-native-webgpu"]
  }
}

The plugin disables Metal API Validation in the shared Xcode scheme of your iOS project - the equivalent of unchecking Product → Scheme → Edit Scheme → Run → Diagnostics → Metal API Validation in Xcode. This is required to run WebGPU on the iOS Simulator: Metal API validation flags false positives in Dawn that do not occur on a physical device and would otherwise crash the app (see the troubleshooting section).

With Continuous Native Generation, the ios directory is regenerated by npx expo prebuild --clean, so unchecking the setting manually in Xcode does not stick - the config plugin re-applies it on every prebuild.

The plugin only affects the iOS Xcode scheme; it is a no-op on Android and it changes nothing for release builds on physical devices. Since the plugin ships with the package, its version is always aligned with the react-native-webgpu version you have installed.