• Replication manager
• ssb-ebt branch
• ssb-friends branch

Looking good!

The app crashes within a few seconds of starting up and I don't see any error messages in adb.

Nothing in adb? That's odd. Which Android OS version (only 5.0 and above is supported).

How are you doing dev on node modules that you are using in the app?

One trick I use sometimes to hack things in is by editing nodejs-assets/nodejs-project/index.js (which after npm run build-nodejs-app should be one huge JS file) directly, and after that running cd android && ./gradlew clean && cd .. && react-native run-android. It's not as great as npm linking, but at least you get to prototype stuff without putting them in git or npm.

run $ react-native run android which always fails the first time

Fails why? My development process is usually (supposing I just git cloned):

• npm install
• Open Android Studio, open the Manyverse android project, press "Sync gradle" button, and wait for nodejs-mobile-react-native to fetch the NDK it needs (this step is needed only once per top-level npm install)
• npm run build-nodejs-app will npm install the backend project, build native modules, and noderify the index.js
• In a separate terminal, I run $(npm bin)/tsc --watch
• In yet another separate terminal, I run npm start -- --reset-cache so it runs the React Native packager
• Those two terminals stay continuously running in the background
• In my main terminal, I run react-native run-android, and it works (I don't need to run it twice)