[sergioisidoro]

I got a bit this feeling when I tried to run the app locally offline during a flight and couldn't, because the client could not call home.

Turns out the client needs an --offline flag to so so, and I got a bit creeped out to have such a dependency.

[jameside]

The Expo Go app needs to connect to a server for two reasons: the server gives you a signing certificate that is used to sign your project manifest, and it also fetches the list of active and recent projects and Snacks. It is certainly not intended to be invasive.

Expo Go is entirely optional and it is recommended to graduate early on in your development cycle to using a development build of your own app instead. Development builds don't sign project manifests (unless you're intentionally using end-to-end signed updates, an advanced feature). They are like regular development builds of a traditional native app.

Also if you'd like to keep using Expo Go, the signing certificate mentioned earlier has an expiry of 30 days or so IIRC, during which time you don't need to connect to a server. You may still want to provide the "--offline" flag to turn off refreshing the certificate.