The instructions are a bit different depending on your development operating system, and whether you want to start developing for iOS or Android.

I recommend installing Node via Chocolatey, a popular package manager for Windows.

It is recommended to use an LTS version of Node. If you want to be able to switch between different versions, you might want to install Node via nvm-windows, a Node version manager for Windows.

React Native also requires Java SE Development Kit (JDK), which can be installed using Chocolatey as well.

Open an Administrator Command Prompt (right click Command Prompt and select "Run as Administrator"), then run the following command:

choco install -y nodejs-lts microsoft-openjdk17

If you have already installed Node on your system, make sure it is Node 18 or newer. If you already have a JDK on your system, we recommend JDK17. You may encounter problems using higher JDK versions.

Android development environment

Setting up your development environment can be somewhat tedious if you're new to Android development. If you're already familiar with Android development, there are a few things you may need to configure. In either case, please make sure to carefully follow the next few steps.

1. Install Android Studio

Download and install Android Studio. While on Android Studio installation wizard, make sure the boxes next to all of the following items are checked:

Android SDK
Android SDK Platform
Android Virtual Device
If you are not already using Hyper-V: Performance (Intel ® HAXM)

Then, click "Next" to install all of these components.

Once setup has finalized and you're presented with the Welcome screen, proceed to the next step.

2. Install the Android SDK

Android Studio installs the latest Android SDK by default. Building a React Native app with native code, however, requires the Android 13 (Tiramisu) SDK in particular. Additional Android SDKs can be installed through the SDK Manager in Android Studio.

To do that, open Android Studio, click on "More Actions" button and select "SDK Manager".

Select the "SDK Platforms" tab from within the SDK Manager, then check the box next to "Show Package Details" in the bottom right corner. Look for and expand the Android 13 (Tiramisu) entry, then make sure the following items are checked:

Android SDK Platform 33
Intel x86 Atom_64 System Image or Google APIs Intel x86 Atom System Image

Next, select the "SDK Tools" tab and check the box next to "Show Package Details" here as well. Look for and expand the Android SDK Build-Tools entry, then make sure that 33.0.0 is selected.

Finally, click "Apply" to download and install the Android SDK and related build tools.

3. Configure the ANDROID_HOME environment variable

The React Native tools require some environment variables to be set up in order to build apps with native code.

Open the Windows Control Panel.
Click on User Accounts, then click User Accounts again
Click on Change my environment variables
Click on New... to create a new ANDROID_HOME user variable that points to the path to your Android SDK:

The SDK is installed, by default, at the following location:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Android\Sdk

You can find the actual location of the SDK in the Android Studio "Settings" dialog, under Languages & Frameworks → Android SDK.

Open a new Command Prompt window to ensure the new environment variable is loaded before proceeding to the next step.

Open powershell
Copy and paste Get-ChildItem -Path Env:\ into powershell
Verify ANDROID_HOME has been added

4. Add platform-tools to Path

Open the Windows Control Panel.
Click on User Accounts, then click User Accounts again
Click on Change my environment variables
Select the Path variable.
Click Edit.
Click New and add the path to platform-tools to the list.

The default location for this folder is:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Android\Sdk\platform-tools

Installation !!