Background

• I upgraded to Expo 53 this week, and thankfully I didn't run into the same issues that a few other people seem to be hitting (🐞 Can't find tamagui configuration after upgrading to Expo SDK 53 #3569).
• While upgrading, I intentionally did'nt enable either React Compiler or the new React Native Architecture.
• After getting to v53, I isolated a change to enable React Compiler.
• When enabling the compiler, following the docshere I started to run into the sameCan't find Tamagui configuration error that others have reported.
• I discoverd that I could consistently use the app withreactCompiler:false, but setting it totrue broke by app due to this Tamagui error.

Resolution

I was able to resolve this (and enable React compiler) by taking the following steps:

1. reactCompiler: false in my Expo app config.
2. Avoid configuringreactCompiler via 'babel-preset-expo'
3. Manually configure the react compiler babel plugin, by adding itbelow my Tamagui plugin in my babel config.

Below is an example of my final babel config:

module.exports=(api)=>{api.cache(false);return{presets:[['babel-preset-expo',{reanimated:true,//@see https://docs.reown.com/appkit/react-native/core/installation#create-babel-config-jsunstable_transformImportMeta:true,/**           * Note: React compiler can be enabled here, but the beta version is incompatible with tamagui/babel-plugin           */},],],plugins:[['@tamagui/babel-plugin',{components:['tamagui'],config:'./tamagui.config.ts',logTimings:true,disableExtraction:false,},],],overrides:[{/**         * Note: This can also be configured via the babel-preset-expo preset.         * When doing so (v53), this conflicted with the tamagui/babel-plugin.         *         * For this reason, we're configuring it manually here instead.         */test:/\.(ts|tsx)$/,plugins:[['babel-plugin-react-compiler',{compilationMode:'infer',panicThreshold:'none',target:'19',/**               * Use this callback to determine if the file should be processed by the react compiler.               *               * This is called for every TS file in the project.               */sources:(filename)=>{// filter out files in node_modules + generated code.},logger:{logEvent(filename,event){// basic logging},},},],],},],};};

My understanding here is that the order of plugins matter. Both Tamagui and react-compiler arechanging my React source code. I suspect that one or more of the packages doesn't like being in the wrong order.

Additional context

• I also shared this issue with the Expo team on Discord (link).
• I agree with them that it's not really an Expo problem, and it's not really a Tamagui problem either because I found a suitable workaround. It's more of an intergration issue between two popular tools.
• React compiler is still considered beta (and experimental by Expo), but I believe they are going to make it on by default in the next major release (v54).
• I suspect when they do, you'll get more reports of this being an issue, and it might even lead people to believe that Tamagui doesn't work with it at all.
• I think it would be helpful to provide a suggested way to integrate react compiler with the tamagui compiler.