Unable to create new projects with vanilla example apps targeting react-native < 0.76

[jonthysell]

Description

When calling create-react-native-library and specifying a react-native version < 0.76, we hit the new assert: The generated example app doesn't have community CLI installed

This is because neither the @react-native-community/template for 0.75 nor the react-native template for 0.74 have the CLI specified as a direct dependency.

Packages

• create-react-native-library
• react-native-builder-bob

Selected options

npx --yes create-react-native-library@latest --slug testcli --description testcli --author-name "React-Native-Windows Bot" --author-email 53619745+rnbot@users.noreply.github.com --author-url http://example.com/ --repo-url http://example.com/ --languages kotlin-objc --type module-new --react-native-version 0.75.3 --example vanilla testcli

Link to repro

https://github.com/microsoft/react-native-windows

Environment

info Fetching system and libraries information...
System:
OS: Windows 11 10.0.26100
CPU: "(24) x64 AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3945WX 12-Cores "
Memory: 50.03 GB / 63.86 GB
Binaries:
Node:
version: 18.18.0
path: C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.EXE
Yarn:
version: 1.22.22
path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Yarn\bin\yarn.CMD
npm:
version: 9.8.1
path: C:\Program Files\nodejs\npm.CMD
Watchman: Not Found
SDKs:
Android SDK: Not Found
Windows SDK:
AllowDevelopmentWithoutDevLicense: Enabled
AllowAllTrustedApps: Enabled
Versions:
- 10.0.19041.0
- 10.0.22621.0
IDEs:
Android Studio: Not Found
Visual Studio:
- 17.12.35309.182 (Visual Studio Enterprise 2022)
- 17.11.35327.3 (Visual Studio Enterprise 2022)
Languages:
Java: Not Found
Ruby: Not Found
npmPackages:
"@react-native-community/cli": Not Found
react:
installed: 18.3.1
wanted: 18.3.1
react-native:
installed: 0.75.3
wanted: 0.75.3
react-native-windows:
installed: 0.75.7
wanted: 0.75.7
npmGlobalPackages:
"react-native": Not Found
Android:
hermesEnabled: true
newArchEnabled: false
iOS:
hermesEnabled: Not found
newArchEnabled: Not found

[satya164]

The --react-native-version is meant for debugging purposes as well as testing upcoming versions of React Native. Officially, create-react-native-library only supports the current stable version of React Native when generating the project as it's a massive task to add custom logic for changes in the template for every version.

So if you need to use a previous version of React Native, I'd recommend hardcoding to the last known working version of create-react-native-library instead of latest.