create-react-app and npm noob here, and I'm having some trouble with deploying to production. When I start my app, I want to start a specific js file, as well as run the normal react-scripts start. So in my package.json, I have the following.
"scripts": {
"start": "node -r esm src/server.js & react-scripts start",
...
}
When I run npm start, it works great, both scripts are executed locally and up and running.
My cursory reading seems to indicate that npm start is just for development though. In production, the build/ folder will be used and... I can't figure out how it's run. Testing locally, after running npm run build, the build/ folder is made. And then running serve -s build, something is executed, but it's not my npm start script. It looks like it's just react-scripts start. Attempting to deploy to several real-life production servers like Firebase and Netlify behaves the same way.
So how exactly is the production build started? And how can I configure it to behave like my development build.
I feel like I must be misunderstanding something fundamental as I can't find any explanation online, but any help would be appreciated.
If you're interested in why exactly I have this strange setup, I'm attempting to deploy boardgame.io with a multiplayer server.
The reason to use npm start is so that you can fire up a local web server on the fly and paired with nodemon and other goodies, changes to the source can easily be viewed as if it were in production.
npm build transpiles the source into a lightweight, lazy loading bundle suitable for production. Once the build is complete, you use a web server to host build/index.html and access the site from there. What you use to host it is up to you (most commonly nginx but you could use something like apache or node like you're alluding to with serve -s build).
Related
I'm trying to use Vite for a React project. I need to configure Vite so that when I run the dev server it places the runtime files in a particular directory (because the files are used with another runtime environment). The server config doesn't seems to have an option but I'm not sure if I'm missing something or it is in a different place. Thanks
It doesn't seem to be possible right now according to this repo discussion https://github.com/vitejs/vite/discussions/6108
Meanwhile, you could run the dev command along with the build --watch command to have both, but it would get slower
npm run dev & npm run build -- --watch
I'm using create-react-app. When I run npm start (react-scripts start) it continuously builds the changes for me and does it magic. But what is the output folder for that? I know when I build it manually where the files go.
I want to use firebase emulator to serve the current version (the continuous build) of my react all but I don't understand where's the output folder or how to achieve it.
You could try this package https://github.com/Nargonath/cra-build-watch
Install it and add the script to your package.json
{
"scripts": {
"watch": "cra-build-watch"
}
}
and run it
npm run watch
more info here
https://ibraheem.ca/writings/cra-write-to-disk-in-dev/
and if you go to the react repo issue linked in the article you would find more workarounds
tl;dr
run npm run build, not npm run start
More Detail
react-scripts start runs webpack-dev-server internally. As a default setting, webpack-dev-server serves bundled files from memory and does not write files in directory.
If you want to write files with webpack-dev-sever, you could set writeToDisk option to true in your dev server configuration.
However, I dont think this is what you want to serve on firebase emulator. Webpack-dev-server does not build optimal app for production, and you also need to use react-app-rewired to customize dev server configuration in cra template.
What you want to do is npm run build to run react-scripts build, which builds optimized production app in /build directory.
I am new on Next JS, I have created a small application. It is using API calls and more features.
During development, Using the command as npm run build I am able to create .next folder as build and using npm run start I am able to run that build.
Now the client is asking for build, so what should I send to him? Either complete project and ask him to do the
npm run build and npm run start (which I don't think so)
or only the .next folder. But how he will run this build?
Open package.json in your editor and add the following export script to the file:
"export": "npm run build && next export -o _static"
run this code in the terminal:
npm run export
Open _static folder and there is all of your file.
Some possible ways of sharing your project:
You can easily build and host your project with services like vercel or netlify. Easy and quick. Check out the vercel CLI in particular.
Your client can clone the git repo, install all dependencies, run build, and run start. This'll start a production server. Check here: https://nextjs.org/docs/api-reference/cli#production. Bad idea if your client is not a dev.
You can build your project and send the output to your client, which he/she can then view by spinning up a server (python simpleHTTPServer, Mamp). Also a bad idea if your client is not a dev.
Long story short, host your project somewhere and send them a production URL.
I'm using react-app-rewired & customize-cra to setup a multi-project monorepo with shared TypeScript code, without ejecting from create-react-app (the setup is described in this answer). The layout is like:
/my-project
|--- /frontend <-Contains the create-react-app
|--- /shared <-Contains some typescript source, used by the CRA
...
It works great locally. The only thing I'm unable to figure out is how to get it deployed to Heroku:
If I use Git to just push the 'frontend' subdirectory (git subtree push --prefix frontend heroku master), the Heroku build of course fails, because it cannot find the source files in /shared - those weren't even pushed to the server.
I tried using the monorepo buildpack as described here, but the result was the same. Build failed, couldn't find source files in /shared.
I've tried the "hacky" solution in the comment here: setting "postinstall": "npm install --prefix frontend in package.json. Although it seemed to build, accessing https://myap123.herokuapp.com and https://myap123.herokuapp.com/frontend yield 404.
I also tried the solution in the comment here: putting release: cd frontend && npm install && npm run build in the procfile. Same behavior: it seems to build, but is not accessible from the browser (404).
While there are many resources about deploying projects from a monorepo, and many others about sharing code between React & Node projects, I've been unable to find anything that actually works for both: share code, and deploy the projects that reference that code to Heroku. At this point, I'm just focused on trying to deploy the frontend.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
The simple answer (from this thread) is that Heroku provides no proper way to run in a subdirectory. Any solution will be a hack, and those will vary depending on your project layout.
In my case, I got it working by putting a package.json in the root of the repo with:
{
"scripts": {
"postinstall": "npm install --prefix backend && npm run build --prefix backend",
"start": "node backend/dist/app.js"
}
}
This did not require a procfile. If it's a typescript project, make sure the backend's package.json's script tag has "build": "tsc".
For the frontend, I gave up on Heroku. Instead, I just deployed the frontend to Netlify, which lets you easily deploy from a (pre-built) subdir. So between using Netlify for frontend & the above hack for backend, I have a hacked-together working stack, until Heroku hopefully gets around to properly letting you specify a subdirectory from which to run (they claim they've been waiting for NPM Workspaces, which was completed as of NPM 7).
I have a React app that depends on two backend NodeJS files that I run in my development environment using Nodemon.
I typically have to start up XAMPP, run each Node backend file, and start my React dev server. This gets a bit annoying and I'm trying to improve my setup.
I tried adding a new script to my package.json file:
"proj-start": "nodemon backend/proj-api.js; nodemon backend/proj-scrape.js; react-scripts start"
When I run this though, there are a few issues:
a) it doesn't actually run the exact command I've scripted. It runs this:
[nodemon] starting `react-scripts start backend/proj-api.js; nodemon backend/proj-scrape.js; react-scripts start`
So it seems to add an additional react-scripts start at the beginning for some reason.
b) It doesn't run the API. I'm guessing that's due to the added react-scripts start that's breaking my first scripted command.
c) Every time I save one of my backend files, it restarts the entire script rather than just the specific node application like Nodemon typically does.
Is what I'm attempting to accomplish not actually possible, or am I approaching it incorrectly?