[isekovanic]

Ticket: https://linear.app/stream/issue/RN-485

🎯 Goal

Fix a startup crash for integrators who install with npm on React 19: "Cannot read property 'useState' of null".

Since 9.10.0, core depends on @khanacademy/simple-markdown (^2.1.0) for the AI components' markdown. That package peer-depends on react/react-dom ^18.2.0. Core does not declare react itself, so npm satisfies the peer by nesting React 18.3.1 at node_modules/stream-chat-react-native-core/node_modules/react. Core's own import 'react' then resolves to that copy, and the app runs two Reacts.

Only npm does this. Yarn 1, Yarn 4, pnpm 10 and bun 1.3 all hand core the app's React 19, which is why the monorepo never showed it.

🛠 Implementation details

Replace @khanacademy/simple-markdown with the original simple-markdown ^0.7.3. The fork was cut from it at 0.8.0, and 0.7.3 has no peer dependencies. It is already in the tree through react-native-markdown-package, and core's main entry already imported it (renderText.tsx) without declaring it.

• package/package.json / yarn.lock: swap the dependency (the fork and @khanacademy/perseus-utils drop out).
• src/ai-components/markdown/*: import from simple-markdown. The API and type names are the same.
• bin/validate-entry-isolation.js: drop the fork from the AI-only packages list, since the main entry already uses simple-markdown.
• src/ai-components/README.md: point the rules link at the original repo.

The fork's newer releases don't help. Every version up to 4.0.3, and Perseus main, still declares react/react-dom ^18.2.0. 4.x is also ESM-only, so Metro on RN 0.76–0.78, which v9 still supports, can't resolve it.

🎨 UI Changes

None. Markdown output is identical.

🧪 Testing

• yarn lint, cd package && yarn test:typecheck, yarn build and yarn test:unit (220 suites, 2421 tests) all pass.
• npm proof: npm install --package-lock-only next to react@19.3.0. Published 9.14.1 nests react/react-dom 18.3.1 under core; the packed fix resolves a single React 19.3.0, with no @khanacademy packages.
• Parity between the fork (2.2.3) and 0.7.3, run through our AI markdown rules on 2,732 markdown files: the parse trees and rendered element trees are identical. A source diff confirms the parser and regex code is the same. The only differences are sanitizeUrl and the default hr output, and both are code we never run.
• On device: checked on the V10 PR, fix(ai-components): use simple-markdown 0.7.3 to stop npm nesting React 18 under core #3988. The markdown code differs slightly on v9, so the 2,732-file parity check was re-run here too, with identical results.

☑️ Checklist

• I have signed the Stream CLA (required)
• PR targets the v9-release branch
• Documentation is updated
• New code is tested in main example apps, including all possible scenarios
  • SampleApp iOS and Android
  • Expo iOS and Android

[Stream-SDK-Bot]

SDK Size

title	develop	branch	diff	status
js_bundle_size	2033 KB	2047 KB	+14263 B	🔴
ai_components_size	344 KB	342 KB	-2690 B	🚀
a2ui_size	103 KB	103 KB	-299 B	🚀