Hermes is always disabled

[DanielSRS]

Environment

react-native -v: 0.75.4
npm ls react-native-macos: 0.75.15
node -v: 21.7.1
npm -v: 10.5.0
yarn --version: 4.5.1
xcodebuild -version: 15.4

Steps to reproduce the bug

Not exactly sure if this is a bug or intended, But I can't enable Hermes by just running USE_HERMES=1 pod install as suggested here (since the docs site seems outdated) because in Podfile:

:hermes_enabled => false

I'm unaware if there is any problem with Hermes on MacOS that motivated this, I was just testing DevTools and Hermes is needed for that.

Expected Behavior

just run USE_HERMES=1 pod install to enable Hermes

Actual Behavior

running USE_HERMES=1 pod install does nothing

Reproducible Demo

To reproduce:

• run npx react-native-macos-init to add macos to a RN project
• run cd macos && USE_HERMES=1 pod install

Additional context

I just updated the Podfile to:

use_react_native!(
    :path => '../node_modules/react-native-macos',
-   :hermes_enabled => false
+   :hermes_enabled => ENV['USE_HERMES'] == '1',
    :fabric_enabled => ENV['RCT_NEW_ARCH_ENABLED'] == '1',
    # An absolute path to your application root.
    :app_path => "#{Pod::Config.instance.installation_root}/.."
  )

And all the related pods seems to be installed correctly and build and running worked without any issues so far.

If the template is intended to be like this, feel free to close it right away.

[bear-ei]

In version 0.75.0, you can temporarily modify :hermes_enabled => false to :hermes_enabled => true, and then run pod install to enable Hermes.

[DanielSRS]

Yes, you're right, I was also wondering if it might be worth updating the template to simply check the env.

I think this would be more suitable to open as an discussion rather than a issue, but its not available in this repo.

[bear-ei]

Yes, you're right, I was also wondering if it might be worth updating the template to simply check the env.

I think this would be more suitable to open as an discussion rather than a issue, but its not available in this repo.

I believe that using USE_HERMES=1 pod install is the correct approach. However, for versions 0.75.0 to 0.76.0 at least, if you do not use :hermes_enabled => true, then every time you need to update the pods, you must add the USE_HERMES=1 instruction. It seems that the environment variable does not properly persist the USE_HERMES setting. Currently, using :hermes_enabled => true should only be a temporary measure.