DevMate: Accelerating React Native Development at Atlassian
Article Summary
Asif Mujteba from Atlassian just revealed how they slashed React Native build times by 97%. If you've ever rage-quit while waiting for a rebuild after switching branches, this one's for you.
Atlassian's Mobile Platform team built DevMate, an internal CLI tool that solves the painful friction points in React Native development. While migrating Confluence Mobile from native to React Native, they discovered that environment setup, inconsistent workflows, and lengthy rebuild times were killing productivity.
Key Takeaways
- Build times dropped from 8 minutes to 1.2 seconds for JS-only changes (97% faster)
- Onboarding reduced from 3 days to 2 hours with automated environment setup
- Smart hashing skips native rebuilds when only JavaScript changed across branch switches
- 78% of builds could be skipped entirely using modification time tracking
- Hybrid TypeScript/Bash architecture balances speed with reliability and error handling
Critical Insight
DevMate transformed React Native development at Atlassian by automating environment setup and intelligently skipping unnecessary native rebuilds, cutting build times by up to 97%.
