Initialize SDK

Use the createInstance method to initialize the React Native SDK and instantiate an instance of the ReactSDKClient class. Each client corresponds to the datafile representing the state of a project for a certain environment.

Version

SDK v2.2.0 and higher

Description

The createInstance method accepts a configuration object to configure Optimizely.

Some parameters are optional because the SDK provides a default implementation, but you may want to override these for your production environments. For example, you may want override these to set up an error handler and logger to catch issues, an event dispatcher to manage network calls, and a User Profile Service to ensure sticky bucketing.

Parameters

The table below lists the required and optional parameters in React (created by passing in a Config object. The Config class consists of these fields).

Returns

Instantiates an instance of the Optimzely class.

Example

In the React SDK, you can provide either sdkKey or datafile or both.

• When initializing with just the SDK key, the datafile will be automatically downloaded
• When initializing with just the datafile, the SDK will use the given datafile.
• When initializing with both the SDK key and datafile, the SDK will use the given datafile to start, then download the latest version of the datafile in the background.

Instantiate using datafile

You can instantiate with a hard-coded datafile. If you do not pass in an SDK key, the Optimizely Client will not automatically sync newer versions of the datafile. Any time you retrieve an updated datafile, just re-instantiate the same client. The hardcoded datafile can be a JSON or a valid JSON string. To get the hardcoded datafile, copy the datafile JSON string from the app. Typically you would want to copy the datafile string at the latest point possible pre-release.

import * as optimizelyReactSDK from '@optimizely/react-sdk';

// Instantiate an Optimizely client
const optimizely = optimizelyReactSDK.createInstance({
  datafile: optimizelyDatafile,
})

Instantiate using SDK key

To instantiate using SDK Key, obtain the SDK Key from your project's settings page, then pass sdkKey as a string property in the options object you pass to the createInstance method.

import * as optimizelyReactSDK from '@optimizely/react-sdk';

// Instantiate an Optimizely client
const optimizely = optimizelyReactSDK.createInstance({
  sdkKey: '<Your_SDK_Key>',
});

When you provide the sdkKey, the SDK instance downloads the datafile associated with that sdkKey. When the download completes, the SDK instance updates itself to use the downloaded datafile.

Instantiate offline with SDK key

The React Native SDK provides out-of-the-box datafile caching to support fast initialization and offline mode. This means you can initialize using the SDK key even when there is no Internet connectivity. Once downloaded, the datafile is stored in the cache on the user's device. When the SDK is initialized the next time, it uses the datafile from the cache if available and resolves the ready promise. It then continues to load the latest datafile from the server. This results in faster SDK initialization.

Render an OptimizelyProvider with a client and user

To use React SDK components inside your app, render an OptimizelyProvider as the parent of your root app component. Provide your Optimizely instance as the optimizely prop, and a user object:

import { OptimizelyProvider, createInstance  } from '@optimizely/react-sdk'

const optimizely = createInstance({
  datafile: optimizelyDatafile,
});

class AppWrapper extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <OptimizelyProvider
      	optimizely={optimizely}
  			user={{id: '<Your_User_Id>'}}>
        <App />
      </OptimizelyProvider>
    );
  }
}

Notes

Customize datafile management behavior

To customize datafile management behavior, provide a datafileOptions object property inside the options object passed to createInstance. The table lists the supported customizable options.

The following example shows how to customize datafile management behavior.

import { createInstance } from '@optimizely/react-sdk';

const optimizely = createInstance({
  sdkKey: '<Your_SDK_Key>',
  datafileOptions: {
    autoUpdate: true,
    updateInterval: 600000, // 10 minutes in milliseconds
    urlTemplate: 'http://localhost:5000/datafiles/%s.json',
  },
});

Source files

The language/platform source files containing the implementation for React SDK are at index.ts.