Optimization Coverage

React Native Boost is conservative by design. If it cannot prove an optimization is safe within the possibilities of a Babel plugin, it skips it. While this means it'll often skip optimizations that would be safe in practice, it also means that you can trust that optimizations that do happen are safe and won't cause behavioral changes or other regressions.

At a Glance

Global Bailouts

These skip optimization before component-specific checks:

• File path matches ignores
• Line is marked with @boost-ignore

Text Coverage

Text is optimized when all checks pass.

Text blacklisted props

If any of these are present, the Text node is skipped:

• Interaction/responder props (onPress, onLongPress, onResponder*, pressRetentionOffset, etc.)
• selectionColor
• id, nativeID

Text structure checks

• Children must be string-safe.
• Text is skipped when used as a direct child of expo-router Link with asChild.

import { Link } from 'expo-router';
import { Text } from 'react-native';

<Link asChild>
  <Text>Open profile</Text>
</Link>;

View Coverage

View has stricter safety checks because View inside text-like ancestors can break layout/semantics.

View blacklisted props

If any of these are present, the View node is skipped:

• style
• Accessibility props (accessible, accessibilityLabel, accessibilityState, aria-*)
• id, nativeID

Ancestor safety checks

View optimization depends on ancestor classification:

• safe: optimize
• text: skip (has Text ancestor)
• unknown: skip by default

Set dangerouslyOptimizeViewWithUnknownAncestors: true to optimize unknown ancestors too.

Spread Props: Resolvable vs Unresolvable

Unresolvable spread props are treated as unsafe and cause bailouts.

// Usually optimizable (resolvable object literal)
<Text {...{ selectable: true }}>Hello</Text>

// Usually skipped (cannot be statically resolved)
<Text {...props}>Hello</Text>

Same rule applies to View.