What is expo-app-starter?

Expo App Starter is a template for building mobile apps with Expo that already has sign in, sign up, and a working database connection set up. The idea behind it is that every new mobile app needs the same basic pieces such as authentication, email verification, a place to store data, and light or dark theming, and building those correctly and avoiding their common bugs can take days. This starter has already solved that so a developer can begin working on the actual app right away. Authentication is handled by Clerk, and the database is Supabase, connected through Clerk's native integration rather than an older, deprecated method, so row level security works cleanly. The starter is not locked to these two choices though, since all authentication code lives in one folder and all data access goes through a single file, making it possible to swap in a different provider without rewriting the app. The README highlights several specific bugs the starter has already fixed, things that often trip up other starter templates. These include screens reloading when Clerk's login token refreshes in the background, a flash of the wrong screen right after the app opens, and users getting stuck because two navigation redirects fire at the same time after signing in. It also handles a case where the on screen keyboard covers buttons, since the usual fix in React Native does not work reliably on Android. Beyond authentication, the starter includes file based navigation through Expo Router, a custom bottom tab bar, a settings drawer, dark and light theming controlled by a single accent color, and a test suite using Jest that already has the tricky native modules mocked out. Everything is written in TypeScript. To use it, a developer clones the repository, installs dependencies, adds their own Clerk and Supabase keys to an environment file, and runs Expo to start the app. The starter is released under the MIT license, which allows free use in both personal and commercial projects.