HACKER Q&A
📣 samwellx

How do you design offline-first flows in large React Native apps?


I’m working on a mobile app where offline-first is a real requirement (not just caching).

The tricky parts are: – optimistic updates – temporary client IDs – retryable request queues – keeping UI responsive while syncing in the background – avoiding tight coupling between networking and domain state

I’ve seen apps turn into a mess once these concerns start leaking everywhere.

For those who’ve built offline-first mobile apps at scale: – how do you usually structure this? – what breaks first? – what would you not do again?

I’m experimenting with my own approach, but I’m very curious how others solved this in production.


  👤 kobieps Accepted Answer ✓
Not sure if you're open to using tools for this, but PowerSync solves those tricky things you listed (and many more you didn't list (disclaimer I'm on the team))

We also have docs for common offline-first use cases. For temporary client IDs, see https://docs.powersync.com/usage/sync-rules/client-id#postgr...

Those strategies are broadly applicable no matter the stack, PowerSync just takes care of some of the details.