CI-friendly handling of Zowe usage in Uniwind (Expo EAS)

[ciacka]

Hi 👋
I wanted to share a small observation from using Uniwind in an Expo EAS build and get your thoughts.

When building Android apps on Expo EAS (CI/CD, headless Linux), the build can fail during the package installation step because a dependency pulled in by Uniwind attempts to use the system keyring (libsecret), which is not available in the default EAS build image.

In my setup, I worked around this by installing libsecret in a pre-install hook, which makes the package installation step succeed.

This made me wonder whether Uniwind could provide a more CI-friendly approach here – for example:

• detecting CI environments, or
• offering an explicit environment variable to let Uniwind skip or adjust its usage of Zowe-related functionality during install/build (if applicable)

This is just a suggestion / thinking out loud, not a complaint 🙂
I’m also considering reaching out to the Expo team to ask about adding libsecret to the EAS build image, but I wanted to check here first to see if there’s a preferred or more appropriate approach from your side.

Thanks for the great work on Uniwind 🙌

[jpudysz]

Hey! I'm not sure if we can pick dependencies based on ENV variable. We need this lib to store safely our JWT token for up to 180 days. Of course it's not applicable for CI/CD environments, but we have just one package for both.

Can you share your pre-install hook? Maybe we can add it to our official guide. Not sure if there is a better solution to this problem.

[ciacka]

Here’s how it looks on my side right now.

I’m using an eas-build-pre-install hook that runs only on EAS Android CI builds, based on Expo’s built-in environment variables. This makes sure it doesn’t run locally or on non-Linux environments.

#!/bin/bash
set -e

if [[ "$EAS_BUILD" == "true" && "$CI" == "true" && "$EAS_BUILD_PLATFORM" == "android" ]]; then
  echo "=====> EAS Android CI build detected – installing libsecret"
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install -y libsecret-1-dev
else
  echo "=====> Skipping libsecret installation"
fi

I’ve placed the script in the project root for now, but the .eas directory might be a better location long-term, since it’s the official place for EAS-specific customization (workflows, hooks, etc.).
Make sure to run chmod +x ./pre-install.sh so it can be executed by EAS.

and in package.json

{
  "scripts": {
    "eas-build-pre-install": "./pre-install.sh"
  }
}

This works well for Android builds on EAS.
It’s probably not necessary for iOS builds, but I haven’t tested that case yet.

[jpudysz]

Thank you, I’ve already included your notes in the CI/CD guide. It should be published tomorrow.

[ciacka]

Quick update: I’ve opened a discussion on the Expo repo to suggest adding libsecret to the EAS Android build image:
expo/expo#42382

[ciacka]

Update from the Expo side: one of the maintainers responded and asked whether libsecret-1-dev would be sufficient, or if anything else is needed. @jpudysz – do you happen to know if there are any additional dependencies required beyond libsecret-1-dev?

On my end, I'm currently blocked by #316 (case-sensitive filename issue), so I won't be able to verify the full EAS build until that fix is released.

[jpudysz]

I have no idea as I don't build on linux.

Maybe you can patch-package quickly?

Fix is already deployed to main, but needs to wait for the next release.

[jpudysz]

Released with other fix. You can check now.

[ciacka]

I applied a patch in a meantime and ran an EAS Android build – it completed successfully with just libsecret-1-dev installed via the pre-install hook 🎉

[ciacka]

Released with other fix. You can check now.

Works like a charm

[Brentlok]

Hi @ciacka we've released a new experimental build that dynamically imports package that uses libsecret under the hood. Could you try uniwind-pro@1.0.0-beta.8-26012026 in your CI / EAS build without preinstalling libsecret? 🙏

[ciacka]

Confirmed it works – detached the pre-install hook and the build passed without any issues.
This is definitely cleaner than having to set up environment-specific hooks. Much appreciated! 🙌

[Brentlok]

Released in beta9 - https://docs.uniwind.dev/pro/changelog#january-27%2C-2026