NativeScript Command-Line Interface

The NativeScript CLI lets you create, build, and deploy NativeScript apps.

Get it using: npm install -g nativescript

What is NativeScript
How the NativeScript CLI works
Supported Platforms
System Requirements
Installation
- Install the NativeScript CLI
- Configure Proxy Settings
Quick Start
Extending the CLI
Troubleshooting
How to Contribute
How to Build
Get Help
License

What is NativeScript

NativeScript provides platform APIs directly to the JavaScript runtime (with strong types) for a rich TypeScript development experience.

Some popular use cases:

Building Web, iOS, Android and Vision Pro apps with a shared codebase (aka, cross platform apps)
Building native platform apps with portable JavaScript skills
Augmenting JavaScript projects with platform API capabilities
AndroidTV and Watch development
watchOS development
Learning native platforms through JavaScript understanding
Exploring platform API documentation by trying APIs directly from a web browser without requiring a platform development machine setup.

To learn more about NativeScript, you can check the following resources:

How the NativeScript CLI works

The NativeScript CLI is the command-line interface for interacting with NativeScript. It incorporates several important services. Consider the following diagram:

NativeScript CLI diagram

Commands - pretty much what every CLI does - support of different command options, input validation and help
Devices Service - provides the communication between NativeScript and devices/emulators/simulators used to run/debug the app. Uses iTunes to talk to iOS and adb for Android
LiveSync Service - redeploys applications when code changes during development
Hooks Service - executes custom-written hooks in developed application, thus modifying the build process
Platforms Service - provides app build functionalities, uses Gradle to build Android packages and Xcode for iOS.

Supported Platforms

With the NativeScript CLI, you can target the following mobile platforms.

Android 4.2 or a later stable official release
iOS 9.0 or later stable official release

System Requirements

You can install and run the NativeScript CLI on Windows, macOS or Linux.

Installation

Install the NativeScript CLI

The NativeScript CLI is available for installing as an npm package.

In the command prompt, run the following command.

OS	Node.js installed from https://nodejs.org/	Node.js installed via package manager
Windows	`npm install nativescript -g`	`npm install nativescript -g`
macOS	`sudo npm install nativescript -g --unsafe-perm`	`npm install nativescript -g`
Linux	`sudo npm install nativescript -g --unsafe-perm`	`npm install nativescript -g`

To check if your system is configured properly, run the following command.

ns doctor

Configure Proxy Settings

If you are working with the NativeScript CLI behind a web proxy, you need to configure your proxy settings.

Set Proxy Settings

ns proxy set <Url> <Username> <Password>

Attributes

<Url>

(Required) The full URL of the proxy. The <Url> attribute is required and if you do not provide it when running the command, the NativeScript CLI will prompt you to provide it. An example of a valid proxy URL is http://127.0.0.1:8888.

<Username> and <Password>

(Optional) The credentials for the proxy. The <Username> and <Password> attributes are optional, however, if you choose to provide them, you must provide both.

Options

--insecure

The --insecure flag allows you to perform insecure SSL connections and transfers. This option is useful when your proxy does not have a CA certificate or the certificate is no longer valid.

Limitations

You can provide the <Username> and <Password> attributes only on Windows systems.
Proxy settings for the npm, the Android Gradle and (optional) Docker need to be configured separately. For more information, see the following articles:

Display Current Proxy Settings

ns proxy

Clear Proxy Settings

ns proxy clear

Quick Start

The Commands
Create Project
Develop Your Project
Build Your Project
Run Your Project

The Commands

Run ns help to view all available commands in the browser. Run ns help <Command> to view more information about a selected command in the browser. ns --help opens console help, where help information is shown in the console.

Create Project

To create a new cross-platform project from the default JavaScript template, run the following command.

ns create MyApp --js

To create a new cross-platform project from the default TypeScript, Angular or Vue template, use the template option followed by either typescript, angular or vue.

ns create MyApp --template typescript
ns create MyApp --template angular
ns create MyApp --template vue

Or you can simply use the shorthand tsc and ng options.

ns create MyApp --tsc
ns create MyApp --ng

With the template option you can also specify a local or a remote path to the template that you want to use to create your project. For example, if you want to create a React template, run the following command.

ns create MyApp --template https://github.com/shirakaba/tns-template-blank-react.git

The NativeScript CLI creates a new project and sets the application identifier to org.nativescript.myapp.

The CLI places the project in a new directory in the current directory. The newly created directory has the following structure.

MyApp/
├── app
│   ├── App_Resources
│   └── ...
└── platforms
    └── ...

The app directory is the development space for your application. You should modify all common and platform-specific code within this directory. When you run prepare <Platform>, the NativeScript CLI prepares relevant content to the platform-specific folders for each target platform.
The platforms directory is created empty. When you add a target platform to your project, the NativeScript CLI creates a new subdirectory with the platform name. The subdirectory contains the ready-to-build resources of your app. When you run prepare <Platform>, the NativeScript CLI prepares relevant content from the app directory to the platform-specific subdirectory for each target platform.

Development with NativeScript

For more information about working with NativeScript, see the following resources.

Development in `app`

The app directory in the root of the project is the development space for your project. Place all your common and platform-specific code in this directory.

In the app directory, you can use platform-specific files to provide customized functionality and design for each target platform. To indicate that a file is platform-specific, make sure that the file name is in the following format: name.ios.extension or name.android.extension. For example: main.ios.js or main.android.js.

You can develop shared functionality or design in common files. To indicate that a file is common, make sure that the file name does not contain a .android. or .ios. string.

Development in `platforms`

IMPORTANT: Avoid editing files located in the platforms subdirectory because the NativeScript CLI overrides such files.

Modifying Configuration Files

The NativeScript CLI respects any platform configuration files placed inside app/App_Resources.

Modifying Entitlements File (iOS only)

To specify which capabilities are required by your App - Maps, Push Notifications, Wallet etc. you can add or edit the app.entitlements file placed inside app/App_Resources/iOS. When building the project, the default app/App_Resources/iOS/app.entitlements file gets merged with all Plugins entitlement files and a new yourAppName.entitlements is created in the platforms directory. The path would be app/platforms/ios/<application name>/<application name>.entitlements and will be linked in the build.xcconfig file.

You can always override the generated entitlements file, by pointing to your own entitlements file by setting the CODE_SIGN_ENTITLEMENTS property in the app/App_Resources/iOS/build.xcconfig file.

Build Your Project

You can build it for your target mobile platforms.

ns build android
ns build ios

The NativeScript CLI calls the SDK for the selected target platform and uses it to build your app locally.

When you build for iOS, the NativeScript CLI will either build for a device, if there's a device attached, or for the native emulator if there are no devices attached. To trigger a native emulator build when a device is attached, set the --emulator flag.

IMPORTANT: To build your app for an iOS device, you must configure a valid certificate and provisioning profile pair, and have that pair present on your system for code signing your application package. For more information, see iOS Code Signing - A Complete Walkthrough.

Run Your Project

You can test your work in progress on connected Android or iOS devices.

To verify that the NativeScript CLI recognizes your connected devices, run the following command.

ns devices

The NativeScript CLI lists all connected physical devices and running emulators/simulators.

After you have listed the available devices, you can quickly run your app on connected devices by executing:

ns run android
ns run ios

Extending the CLI

The NativeScript CLI lets you extend its behavior and customize it to fit your needs by using hooks.

When you run one of the extendable commands (for example, ns build), the CLI checks for hooks and executes them. Plugins can also use hooks to control the compilation of the application package.

For more information, see the Extending the CLI document

Troubleshooting

If the NativeScript CLI does not behave as expected, you might be facing a configuration issue. For example, a missing JAVA path. To check if your system is configured properly for the NativeScript CLI, run the following command.

ns doctor

This command prints warnings about current configuration issues and provides basic information about how to resolve them.

If addressing the configuration issues does not resolve your problem, you can report an issue or ask the community.

How to Contribute

To learn how to log a bug that you just discovered, click here.

To learn how to suggest a new feature or improvement, click here.

To learn how to contribute to the code base, click here.

How to Build

git clone https://github.com/NativeScript/nativescript-cli
cd nativescript-cli
npm run setup

To use the locally built CLI instead of ns you can call PATH_TO_CLI_FOLDER/bin/ns. For example: PATH_TO_CLI_FOLDER/bin/ns run ios|android

Get Help

Please, use github issues strictly for reporting bugs or requesting features. For general NativeScript questions and support, check out Stack Overflow or ask our experts in the NativeScript community Discord channel.

License

This software is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license, quoted here.