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📱 Upgrade and Refactor of the Mobile Application#

Author: Martin Kedmenec

🎯 Introduction and Rationale#

  • Technical Debt: Outdated branches, dependencies (2–3 years old), inconsistent styles, old directory structure, no TypeScript.
  • Google Play Requirement: New apps must target Android 15 (API 35) → impossible in current state.
  • Impact: Outdated practices caused bugs, slowed development, and made deployments unreliable.
  • Key Question: How can we fix this?

⚡ Initial Upgrade and Challenges#

  • npm update / npm audit fix insufficient due to unused and blocking dependencies.
  • Examples:
  • react-native-dotenv (obsolete, replaced by Expo).
  • Outdated Nativewind requiring peer dependency upgrades.
  • Many unused dependencies and inconsistent configurations.

🛠️ The Proper Fix#

  1. Created a fresh Expo project from template.
  2. Reorganized files and directories.
  3. Reinstalled only necessary dependencies.
  4. Migrated to TypeScript.
  5. Renamed files to kebab-case.
  6. Added Prettier.
  7. Added Dockerized setup + .nvmrc fallback.

📚 Major Improvements#

✅ General Best Practices#

  • Moved sources from eml/ → root.
  • Migrated to TypeScript/TSX (except configs).
  • Upgraded all dependencies (Expo 54, Node.js 24).
  • Standardized imports (absolute).
  • Removed redundant/legacy files.
  • Updated .gitignore to Expo standard.

🎨 Common Platform & Style#

  • Prettier (.prettierc, .prettierignore) + full reformat.
  • Added .editorconfig.
  • Added Dockerfile + compose.yaml.
  • Added .nvmrc.
  • IDE configurations (JetBrains, VSCode).
  • Arrow functions, TSDoc adoption, exports refactor (WIP).

📝 To Do#

  • Convert more components to typed props.
  • Fix failing Jest tests (100+ pass).
  • Full migration to TypeScript + fix tsc errors.
  • Migrate tests to @testing-library/react-native.
  • Add proper i18n (EN/PT-BR).
  • Migrate app/index.tsx → Expo Router.
  • Resolve ESLint warnings.
  • Fix GitHub Workflows.
  • Lock Android client version in Expo config.

🚧 Future Issues and Challenges#

  • Large PR size: ~459 files, +67k additions, –80k deletions.
  • Much due to package-lock.json, file renaming, formatting.
  • Strategy: Upgrade first, fix bugs later in smaller batches.

🌿 Branching and Versioning Strategy#

  • Current: Gitflow → dev ahead of main, inconsistent.
  • Proposed: Trunk-Based Development (TBD):
  • Single main as source of truth.
  • Frequent merges (daily).
  • High-quality PRs required.
  • Branch Protection: Lock main and enforce PRs.
  • Versioning: Use Semantic Versioning + auto bump on releases.

✅ Recommendations#

  1. Keep using educado-mobile repo.
  2. Merge refactor-and-upgrade → dev ASAP.
  3. Reset main = dev after upgrade.
  4. Adopt trunk-based development.
  5. Configure branch rulesets.
  6. Fix bugs incrementally with high release velocity.
  7. Release often.
  8. Strengthen CI/CD.
  9. Use Semantic Versioning.
  10. Apply similar refactors to other projects.
  11. Gradually fix TypeScript and ESLint issues.
  12. Pause new features until upgrade complete.