Claude Code for React & React Native: Workflows That Actually Move the Needle
Article Summary
Ankit Bhalla from Cars24 Engineering reveals how Claude Code transformed his React Native workflow after 10+ years of mobile development. This isn't another AI tool tutorial—it's a principal engineer's battle-tested system.
After a decade building mobile apps through every React era, Bhalla shares the exact Claude Code workflows that actually deliver results for React and React Native development. He focuses on systems thinking over command memorization, treating Claude as a senior team member rather than fancy autocomplete.
Key Takeaways
- Well-crafted CLAUDE.md files reduce wrong architecture suggestions by 70%
- Custom skills and subagents handle investigative work without polluting main context
- TDD loop with Claude dropped QA bug reports by 60% for new components
- Context management via /compact and /clear separates productive sessions from frustrating ones
- Subagents consume 170K tokens but return 5K summaries keeping main context clean
Claude Code becomes transformative when you architect it as a system with CLAUDE.md conventions, custom skills, and subagents rather than just using slash commands.
About This Article
During long development sessions, Ankit Bhalla's React Native teams ran into context pollution. Claude would gradually forget the architectural conventions they'd established, leading to inconsistent code generation. This meant they had to keep re-explaining their project standards.
Bhalla created the /compact command to summarize conversation history between features. It kept the key decisions while freeing up context window space. He also built custom subagents that investigate the codebase in read-only mode within isolated contexts, returning concise 5K-token summaries.
Cars24 Engineering adopted a TDD loop with Claude for component development. New components now have 60% fewer QA bug reports. The rn-perf-auditor subagent catches performance issues automatically, like missing keyExtractor in FlatList or inline functions in renderItem.
