getting-started.md

Getting Started

Requirements

• Mac OS X, Windows, or Linux
• Yarn package + Node.js v6.5 or newer
• Text editor or IDE pre-configured with React/JSX/Flow/ESlint (learn more)

Directory Layout

Before you start, take a moment to see how the project structure looks like:

.
├── /build/                     # The folder for compiled output
├── /docs/                      # Documentation files for the project
├── /node_modules/              # 3rd-party libraries and utilities
├── /public/                    # Static files which are copied into the /build/public folder
├── /src/                       # The source code of the application
│   ├── /actions                # Redux actions
│   ├── /components             # React components
│       ├── /common             # Components used across routes
│       ├── /main               # Components representing simple routes under root path
│       ├── ...                 # Folders containing components for complex routes
│       ├── App.js              # Application main component
│   ├── /config/                # Application configuration files
│   ├── /constants/             # Constants
│   ├── /http/                  # HTTP Configuration
│   ├── /models/                # Javascript classes for models
│   ├── /reducers/              # Redux reducers
│   ├── /routes/                # Components to render isomorphic routes with React Router v4
│   ├── /sagas/                 # Redux sagas
│   ├── /setup/                 # Files for bootstrap the application
│   ├── /store/                 # Files to setup the redux store
│   ├── /styles/                # Application styling. Contains a single file containing vars
│   ├── /client.js              # Client-side startup script
│   ├── /config.js              # Global application settings
│   ├── /server.js              # Server-side startup script
│   └── ...                     # Other core framework modules
├── /test/                      # Unit and end-to-end tests
├── /tools/                     # Build automation scripts and utilities
│   ├── /lib/                   # Library for utility snippets
│   ├── /build.js               # Builds the project from source to output (build) folder
│   ├── /bundle.js              # Bundles the web resources into package(s) through Webpack
│   ├── /clean.js               # Cleans up the output (build) folder
│   ├── /copy.js                # Copies static files to output (build) folder
│   ├── /deploy.js              # Deploys your web application
│   ├── /postcss.config.js      # Configuration for transforming styles with PostCSS plugins
│   ├── /run.js                 # Helper function for running build automation tasks
│   ├── /runServer.js           # Launches (or restarts) Node.js server
│   ├── /start.js               # Launches the development web server with "live reload"
│   └── /webpack.config.js      # Configurations for client-side and server-side bundles
├── Dockerfile                  # Commands for building a Docker image for production
├── package.json                # The list of 3rd party libraries and utilities
└── yarn.lock                   # Fixed versions of all the dependencies

Note: The current version of RSK does not contain a Flux implementation. It can be easily integrated with any Flux library of your choice. The most commonly used Flux libraries are Flux, Redux and Relay.

Quick Start

1. Get the latest version

You can start by cloning the latest version of React Starter Kit (RSK) on your local machine by running:

$ git clone -o react-starter-kit -b master --single-branch \
      https://github.com/kriasoft/react-starter-kit.git MyApp
$ cd MyApp

Alternatively, you can start a new project based on RSK right from WebStorm IDE, or by using Yeoman generator.

2. Run yarn install

This will install both run-time project dependencies and developer tools listed in package.json file.

3. Run yarn start

This command will build the app from the source files (/src) into the output /build folder. As soon as the initial build completes, it will start the Node.js server (node build/server.js) and Browsersync with HMR on top of it.

http://localhost:3000/ — Node.js server (build/server.js)
http://localhost:3001/ — BrowserSync proxy with HMR, React Hot Transform
http://localhost:3002/ — BrowserSync control panel (UI)

Now you can open your web app in a browser, on mobile devices and start hacking. Whenever you modify any of the source files inside the /src folder, the module bundler (Webpack) will recompile the app on the fly and refresh all the connected browsers.

Note that the yarn start command launches the app in development mode, the compiled output files are not optimized and minimized in this case. You can use --release command line argument to check how your app works in release (production) mode:

$ yarn start -- --release

NOTE: double dashes are required

How to Build, Test, Deploy

If you need just to build the app (without running a dev server), simply run:

$ yarn run build

or, for a production build:

$ yarn run build -- --release

or, for a production docker build:

$ yarn run build -- --release --docker

NOTE: double dashes are required

After running this command, the /build folder will contain the compiled version of the app. For example, you can launch Node.js server normally by running node build/server.js.

To check the source code for syntax errors and potential issues run:

$ yarn run lint

To launch unit tests:

$ yarn run test          # Run unit tests with Mocha
$ yarn run test:watch    # Launch unit test runner and start watching for changes

By default, Mocha test runner is looking for test files matching the src/**/*.test.js pattern. Take a look at src/components/Layout/Layout.test.js as an example.

To deploy the app, run:

$ yarn run deploy

The deployment script tools/deploy.js is configured to push the contents of the /build folder to a remote server via Git. You can easily deploy your app to Azure Web Apps, or Heroku this way. Both will execute yarn install --production upon receiving new files from you. Note, you should only deploy the contents of the /build folder to a remote server.