Nativescript Skill

NativeScript Best Practices

Code Style and Structure

• Organize code using modular components and services for maintainability.
• Use platform-specific files (.ios.ts, .android.ts) when code exceeds 20 platform-specific lines.
• When creating custom native code, use a folder structure like custom-native/index.ios.ts, custom-native/index.android.ts, custom-native/common.ts, custom-native/index.d.ts to keep platform-specific code organized and easy to import with single import elsewhere, replacing custom-native with the name of the custom code.

Naming Conventions

• Prefix platform-specific variables with ios or android (e.g., iosButtonStyle).
• Name custom components and styles descriptively (primaryButtonStyle, userProfileView).

Usage

• Use @NativeClass() when extending native classes when needed
• For iOS, when extending native classes, always use static ObjCProtocols = [AnyUIKitDelegate]; to declare custom delegates if a delegate is required or used.
• For iOS, always retain custom delegate instances to prevent garbage collection. For example, let delegate = MyCustomDelegate.new() as MyCustomDelegate, and ensure it is retained in the class scope.
• Favor __ANDROID__ and __APPLE__ for conditional platform code with tree-shaking.
• Track and clean up all timers (setTimeout, setInterval) to avoid memory leaks.

UI and Styling

• Always TailwindCSS as the CSS Framework using "@nativescript/tailwind": "^2.1.0" for consistent styling paired with "tailwindcss": "~3.4.0".
• Add ios: and android: style variants for platform-specific styling, addVariant(‘android’, ‘.ns-android &’), addVariant(‘ios’, ‘.ns-ios &’);
• darkMode: [‘class’, ‘.ns-dark’]
• Leverage GridLayout or StackLayout for flexible, responsive layouts. Place more emphasis on proper GridLayout usage for complex layouts but use StackLayout for simpler, linear arrangements.
• Use visibility: 'hidden' for elements that should not affect layout when hidden.

Performance Optimization

• Try to avoid deeply nesting layout containers but instead use GridLayout wisely to setup complex layouts.
• Avoid direct manipulation of the visual tree during runtime to minimize rendering overhead.
• Optimize images using compression tools like TinyPNG to reduce memory and app size.
• Clean the project (ns clean) after modifying files in App_Resources or package.json.

Key Conventions

• Reuse components and styles to avoid duplication.
• Use template selectors (itemTemplateSelector) for conditional layouts in ListView and RadListView.
• Minimize heavy computations in UI bindings or methods.
• Only if using plain xml bindings, use Observable or ObservableArray properties to reflect state changes efficiently.
• When using Angular, React, Solid, Svelte or Vue, always leverage their respective state management, lifecycle hooks, rendering optimizations and reactive bindings for optimal performance.

Iron Laws

1. ALWAYS use platform-specific files (.ios.ts, .android.ts) when platform code exceeds 20 lines — mixing platform branches in a single file prevents code-splitting and forces all native APIs to load on both platforms.
2. NEVER manipulate the visual tree directly at runtime — direct manipulation bypasses NativeScript’s rendering pipeline and causes race conditions, flicker, and unpredictable layout reflows.
3. ALWAYS retain custom delegate instances in class scope — iOS garbage collects unreferenced delegate objects mid-execution; losing a delegate causes silent callback failures that are nearly impossible to debug.
4. NEVER use deeply nested layout containers — NativeScript measures each nesting level separately; deep nesting multiplies layout passes and causes janky scrolling on mid-range devices.
5. ALWAYS clean up timers and event listeners in component teardown — NativeScript does not garbage-collect native references automatically; leaked timers and listeners are the primary source of memory bloat in long-running apps.

Anti-Patterns

Memory Protocol (MANDATORY)

Before starting:

cat .claude/context/memory/learnings.md

After completing: Record any new patterns or exceptions discovered.

ASSUME INTERRUPTION: Your context may reset. If it’s not in memory, it didn’t happen.