// the find
expo/expo-cli
Tools for creating, running, and deploying universal Expo and React Native apps
This is the legacy global Expo CLI — the repo the Expo team deprecated in favor of the local CLI now bundled with the `expo` package itself. The README says it plainly: use `npx expo` from `expo/expo` instead. What remains here is the graveyard of tooling that got replaced: webpack-based web support, a GraphQL dev-tools UI, the old credentials management flow, and a pile of helper packages most of which have since moved to the main monorepo.
The config-plugins architecture introduced here was genuinely good — it let you patch native iOS/Android config without fully ejecting, and that idea survived into the modern Expo SDK. The Apple credential management code (certs, provisioning profiles, push keys) is thorough and shows real understanding of the App Store Connect API surface. The monorepo layout with per-package publishing via lerna was sensible for the scale. Test coverage for individual CLI commands is solid, with e2e fixtures that actually run the commands against a real project.
It's archived in everything but name — last commit December 2023, active development stopped years ago, and the README opens by telling you to go elsewhere. The webpack-based web support it pioneered has been fully replaced by Metro for web; picking up `@expo/webpack-config` today means inheriting a dead end. The GraphQL-backed dev-tools UI was over-engineered for what amounted to a local log viewer. The Apple API integration worked by automating the App Store Connect web UI in ways Apple never officially supported, which made it fragile whenever Apple changed their portal.