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react-native init-windows

This guide will give you more information on the init-windows command of the React Native Windows CLI.

init-windows

The init-windows CLI command is used to (re-)initialize a new React Native for Windows project inside an existing React Native project.

Usage

Initializes a new React Native for Windows project from a given template.

npx react-native init-windows

Options

Here are the options that react-native init-windows takes:

Option	Input Type	Description
--logging	boolean	Verbose output logging
--template	string	Specify the template to use (default: cpp-app)
--name	string	The native project name. Defaults to the name property in app.json or package.json
--namespace	string	The native project namespace, expressed using dots as separators, i.e. Level1.Level2.Level3. Defaults to the same as name
--overwrite	boolean	Overwrite any existing files without prompting
--no-telemetry	boolean	Disables sending telemetry that allows analysis of usage and failures of the react-native-windows CLI
--list		Shows a list with all available templates with their descriptions.
-h, --help	boolean	Display help for command

Default Options and Re-initializing Projects

After running, the init-windows command will save the name, namespace and template configuration in the project's package.json:

"react-native-windows": {
    "init-windows": {
      "name": "MyApp",
      "namespace": "MyApp",
      "template": "cpp-app"
    }
  }

If you later repeat the init-windows command to re-initialize a Windows project, without specifying any of those options, the command will default to any saved values. Among other things, this means you can safely re-run init-windows without it automatically changing your project to a different template (i.e. if your project is an Old Architecture app, init-windows won't force you to migrate to the New Architecture).

If you want to change the value (say, you do want to migrate to a new template) just explicitly (re-)specify the option when running init-windows.

Templates

The following templates are available to init-windows and can by manually specified with the --template option (i.e. --template cpp-lib):

Template	Name	Description
cpp-app	React Native Windows Application (New Arch, WinAppSDK, C++)	[Default] A RNW app using RN's New Architecture, built in C++ and targeting WinAppSDK
cpp-lib	React Native Windows Library (C++)	A RNW (Turbo) Native Module supporting RN's New and Old Architectures built in C++
old/uwp-cpp-app	React Native Windows Application (Old Arch, UWP, C++)	[Legacy] A RNW app using RN's Old Architecture, built in C++ and targeting UWP
old/uwp-cs-app	React Native Windows Application (Old Arch, UWP, C#)	[Legacy] A RNW app using RN's Old Architecture, built in C# and targeting UWP

Architecture Note: When initializing React Native for Windows for the first time, the init-windows CLI command defaults to the cpp-app template, which targets React Native's New Architecture. For more information, see New vs. Old Architecture.

Telemetry Notice

This command sends telemetry to Microsoft by default. You can prevent the telemetry from being sent by using the --no-telemetry command line option. See below for more details.

The software may collect information about you and your use of the software and send it to Microsoft. Microsoft may use this information to provide services and improve our products and services. You may turn off the telemetry as described in the repository. There are also some features in the software that may enable you and Microsoft to collect data from users of your applications. If you use these features, you must comply with applicable law, including providing appropriate notices to users of your applications together with a copy of Microsoft's privacy statement. Our privacy statement is located at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=824704. You can learn more about data collection and use in the help documentation and our privacy statement. Your use of the software operates as your consent to these practices.

This data collection notice only applies to the process of running the react-native-windows CLI commands.