The 8.x pipeline bundles your src/nativescript code with esbuild — output is already compact and tree-shaken, and there is no separate "production mode" to configure.
A few notes for release builds:
-
Debug logging is already off by default. Verbose bridge marshalling logs only appear if you call
nativeDebug(true)— make sure you're not shipping that call. -
Metadata footprint. The platform API metadata lives in your app package — ~8–12 MB on iOS (from the NativeScript framework by default, or
nscap metadata), ~2–3 MB on Android (generated bynscap build). This matches the footprint every NativeScript app has always had — it is the map of the platform APIs. -
NativeScript
console.logoutput goes to the system log in release builds too; strip or gate any noisy logging in your native helpers before shipping.
:::tip v5 note
The v5 webpack flags (--env=uglify=true, --env=production=true) no longer exist — esbuild replaced the webpack pipeline. Bundle minification lands as an nscap build flag in a follow-up 8.x release.
:::