React Native Android build failed: what I would...

If a React Native Android build suddenly fails, the error message is often much less helpful than it looks. Sometimes it points to Gradle, sometimes to a plugin, sometimes to a dependency, and sometimes it just fails deep inside the Android build process without making the real cause obvious. I’ve run into this kind of problem enough times to stop treating “build failed” as one issue. It is usually a category of issues. This is the checklist I would go through first before changing random files