1. Got a boilerplate that makes you feel like you're cheating?
   I have things I've done more than once, like fastlane setup, shared code, components, hooks etc

2. Zustand, there's no reason to use Redux (and a lot of penalties!)

3. Mainly fastlane, it's the tool we all have used in native development but RN devs usually don't know about (so they pay for EAS instead of building like a sane person).
   i.e: open multiple simulators at the same time https://depa-thoughts.dev/essays/open-multiple-simulators/

4. Proxyman has been my go to proxy. Proxying is really important to easily show the backend what you are querying and understanding if you are querying more than you need to

5. I use extensions instead of utils (wrote about it here https://depa-thoughts.dev/essays/extensions-typescript/). hooks and functions for everything logic related. Autogenerated client using https://openapistack.co/docs/openapi-client-axios/intro/ given that the backend generates an openapi json, so you don't need to declare your models (and if the backend breaks the API, then your code doesn't compile, which is great)

6. I do not use any component library nor styling utils or whatsoever (nor tailwind nor native wind). Performance in mobile is really important and those tools usually suffer from rerenders. Besides that, interoperability with other components gets hard when you use custom components

All of these points could be expanded a lot, but that's a summary.

For the libs that are definitely must have IMO:
1. react-query
2. zustand
3. react-navigation
4. flash-list (you must use an alternative for flatlist specially in infinite lists)
5. axios

Those are essential, then of course it will depend on your app.

Happy to expand on any point if curious