How to solve "Cannot find module 'react-native/cli" correctly?

[AlexanderEggers]

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Edit: I just noticed #1600 already discusses the issue. I must have missed that when creating this issue. Feel free to close my issue, I will keep that open in case that helps solve the underlying issue.

I have the following use case in my project setup:

Essentially I want to use react-native (0.73) in an existing Android project without having to actually update its structure or anything related to that. Currently the react-native android plugin in gradle is already providing quite a bit of options to define paths to its options, so my look like this:

react {
    root = file("../reactnativemodule/")
    reactNativeDir = file("../reactnativemodule/node_modules/react-native")
    codegenDir = file("../reactnativemodule/node_modules/@react-native/codegen")
    cliFile = file("../reactnativemodule/node_modules/react-native/cli.js")
    entryFile = file("../reactnativemodule/index.js")
}

The Android project contains those plugin defintions but nothing else except actually consuming the rn-module.

Of course the project based gradle contains the react-native gradle plugin defintion and the root-project plugin usage.

buildscript {
    ext {
        buildToolsVersion = "34.0.0"
        minSdkVersion = 26
        compileSdkVersion = 34
        targetSdkVersion = 34
        ndkVersion = "26.1.10909125"
        kotlinVersion = "1.9.0"
    }
    repositories {
        google()
        mavenCentral()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath("com.android.tools.build:gradle")
        classpath("com.facebook.react:react-native-gradle-plugin")
        classpath("org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-gradle-plugin:1.9.0")
    }
}

apply plugin: "com.facebook.react.rootproject"

The rn-module contains the actual gradle dependencies:

api("com.facebook.react:react-android")
implementation("com.facebook.react:hermes-android")

Additionally the rn-module also contains apply from: file("../node_modules/@react-native-community/cli-platform-android/native_modules.gradle"); applyNativeModulesAppBuildGradle(project). This is to ensure that the generated package list file is created, but just for the module, not for the android base project to avoid mixing these projects too much. Because the node_modules and everything around that is not part of the android base project, running native_modules.gradle actually fails with a gradle exception which relates to a missing node module.

Caused by: java.lang.Exception: node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1137 throw err; ^Error: Cannot find module 'react-native/cli'Require stack:- /Users/alex.eggers/Documents/Projects/RNAndroid/[eval] at Module._resolveFilename (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1134:15) at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:975:27) at Module.require (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1225:19) at require (node:internal/modules/helpers:177:18) at [eval]:1:87 at Script.runInThisContext (node:vm:122:12) at Object.runInThisContext (node:vm:298:38) at node:internal/process/execution:82:21 at [eval]-wrapper:6:24 at runScript (node:internal/process/execution:81:62) { code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND', requireStack: [ '/Users/alex.eggers/Documents/Projects/RNAndroid/[eval]' ]}Node.js v18.19.0

The fix that I've applied is:

diff --git a/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli-platform-android/native_modules.gradle b/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli-platform-android/native_modules.gradle
index bbfa7f7..e7a38f7 100644
--- a/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli-platform-android/native_modules.gradle
+++ b/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli-platform-android/native_modules.gradle
@@ -484,7 +484,7 @@ class ReactNativeModules {
  * Sometimes Gradle can be called outside of JavaScript hierarchy. Detect the directory
  * where build files of an active project are located.
  */
-def projectRoot = rootProject.projectDir
+def projectRoot = new File(rootProject.projectDir.path + "/reactnativemodule")
 
 def autoModules = new ReactNativeModules(logger, projectRoot)

So my question is if there is a solution out there which avoids having that patch in place or is that simply something the current CLI is not supporting in its setup?

[szymonrybczak]

hey @AlexanderEggers, as of my knowledge there's no unfortunately. I'll try to find a way to set this path correctly.

[szymonrybczak]

hey @AlexanderEggers, can you please try setting projectDir through settings.gradle?

diff --git a/my_wraper/android/gradlew b/my_wraper/android/gradlew
old mode 100644
new mode 100755
diff --git a/my_wraper/android/settings.gradle b/my_wraper/android/settings.gradle
index 9694a74..f3259bf 100644
--- a/my_wraper/android/settings.gradle
+++ b/my_wraper/android/settings.gradle
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 rootProject.name = 'AwesomeProject'
+rootProject.projectDir = new File(rootProject.projectDir, "../reactnativemodule")
 apply from: file("../reactnativemodule/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli-platform-android/native_modules.gradle"); applyNativeModulesSettingsGradle(settings)
 include ':app'
 includeBuild('../reactnativemodule/node_modules/@react-native/gradle-plugin')

[AlexanderEggers]

@szymonrybczak Thanks for your suggestion but I'm not certain if that is what would make sense in this case. The base Android project still needs to be compiled and is indeed the root project. The missing option is to define the RN root project so that the native modules gradle file resolves correctly.

Something like injecting a custom path as part of this line file("../node_modules/@react-native-community/cli-platform-android/native_modules.gradle"); applyNativeModulesAppBuildGradle(project).

[AlexanderEggers]

@szymonrybczak I have open a PR with some suggestions which could fix the mentioned issue (#2341).