Purpose

This is the foundational skill for every CometChat React Native UI Kit v5 integration. It teaches Claude HOW CometChat works on RN — initialization order, provider wrapper chain, login, env vars, auth tokens, and the anti-patterns that break real apps.

Read this skill first, before any framework (cometchat-native-expo-patterns / cometchat-native-bare-patterns) or placement skill.

Ground-truth sources: docs/ui-kit/react-native/overview.mdx, react-native-cli-integration.mdx, expo-integration.mdx, methods.mdx, and @cometchat/chat-uikit-react-native@5.3.8's src/index.ts (file-based initFromSettings GA). Official docs: https://www.cometchat.com/docs/ui-kit/react-native/overview · Docs MCP: claude mcp add --transport http cometchat-docs https://www.cometchat.com/docs/mcp (or fetch the URL directly without MCP).

1. The init-login-render order

CometChat has exactly one valid lifecycle on React Native:

CometChatUIKit.init(settings)   →   CometChatUIKit.login({ uid })   →   render <CometChat*> components

Breaking this order produces a blank screen, a "CometChat is not initialized" runtime error, or a hung login. No exceptions.

cometchat-native-core

Purpose

1. The init-login-render order