Overview
Pick your track and get an Appbrew app running locally.
Appbrew apps are config-driven React Native apps. The screens, blocks, theme, and navigation come from app config served by the Appbrew backend; the code in your repo renders that config and extends it with custom blocks, features, and integrations.
There are two ways to develop on Appbrew. Pick the track that matches you.
The two tracks
Merchant quickstart
You work on a store's own app. Appbrew provisions a dedicated app repo for your store; you clone it and build custom blocks, screens, and features that ship in your app's releases.
Partner quickstart
You build an integration other merchants can enable. Appbrew shares a sample app repo with you; you develop an integration package inside it, publish the package, and Appbrew enables it for merchant apps.
Merchant app developers own one app. Your repo arrives ready to run: registry access is committed, dependencies are pinned, and the .env already points at your store's config. Everything you build lives in the repo and ships with the app.
Partner integration developers build a package, not an app. The sample app is your host: it runs against a demo store out of the box, so you need no Shopify account to start. Your integration lives in packages/<name>/ as a workspace package, and the finished result is published to a registry so any merchant app can depend on it.
First hour, both tracks
Both tracks follow the same first hour:
- Install the toolchain — see Prerequisites. One tool (
mise) installs everything pinned by the repo. - Clone the repo Appbrew gave you and run
mise installthenpnpm install. - Boot the app with
pnpm run-iosorpnpm run-android— see Run your app.
From there the tracks diverge: merchants go on to building custom blocks, partners go on to building integrations.
No repo yet?
Both tracks start from a repo Appbrew provisions for you. If you don't have one, contact Appbrew before going further — there is no self-serve path to create one.
If you get stuck
Getting help covers how to reach Appbrew, what to include in a report, and which problems (registry 401s, access requests, release questions) need Appbrew's side to fix.