Introduction

NativeScope is a local studio for the data inside a running React Native app. It reads and writes AsyncStorage, MMKV and SQLite live, so you can see what your app actually stored instead of guessing from log statements.

It is built around one constraint: you should not have to change your app to inspect it.

How it stays out of the way

Most devtools ask you to mount a provider, wrap your root component, or register your storage instances by hand. NativeScope does none of that. When you start your app through the NativeScope CLI, it composes a small Metro wrapper around your existing config. The resolver substitutes the storage modules your app already imports with instrumented versions in development. Your app source is untouched.

That gives three properties worth stating plainly:

• No app integration code. Your imports of @react-native-async-storage/async-storage, react-native-mmkv and expo-sqlite keep working exactly as written.
• A release no-op. When Metro builds with dev: false, the resolver bypasses every NativeScope shim and resolves the real storage module. NativeScope's own CI scans a release bundle for the shim marker as a second guard.
• A reversible Metro wrapper. If the CLI finds an existing metro.config.js, it preserves it as metro.config.original.js and writes a small delegate. The generated file explains how to restore the original config.

What you get

A key/value browser with live change highlighting, a SQLite client with an editable grid and a SQL console, a global search that runs on the device rather than shipping your database across the wire, and streaming export for tables and instances that are too large to hold in memory.

Changes are bidirectional. Editing a value from the studio writes it on the device and the app sees it immediately; a write from the app appears in the studio tagged with its origin, so you always know whether you or the app caused something.

What it is not

It is not a production monitoring tool, not a crash reporter, and not a remote debugger. It runs against 127.0.0.1 and holds no database of app values. Closing it discards inspected data; only small interface preferences may remain in that browser.

Where to go next

Start with the Quickstart. If you use React Query or another cache layer in front of your storage, read the React Query bridge afterwards — it is the one piece of configuration most projects end up wanting.