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Deploying a React App to GitHub Pages

* created using create-react-app

Introduction

In this tutorial, I'll show you how you can create a React app and deploy it to GitHub Pages.

To create the React app, I'll be using create-react-app, which is a tool people can use to create a React app from scratch. To deploy the React app, I'll be using gh-pages, which is an npm package people can use to deploy things to GitHub Pages, a free web hosting service provided by GitHub.

If you follow along with this tutorial, you'll end up with a new React app—hosted on GitHub Pages—which you can then customize.

Tutorial

Prerequisites

  1. Node and npm are installed. Here are the versions I'll be using while making this tutorial:

    $ node --version
v16.13.2

$ npm --version
8.1.2

    Installing npm adds two commands to the system—npm and npx—both of which I'll be using while making this tutorial.

  2. Git is installed. Here's the version I'll be using while making this tutorial:

    $ git --version
git version 2.29.1.windows.1

  3. A GitHub account. :octocat:

Procedure

1. Create an empty repository on GitHub

  1. Sign into your GitHub account.
  2. Visit the Create a new repository form.
  3. Fill in the form as follows:

    • Repository name: You can enter any name you want*.

      * For a project site, you can enter any name you want. For a user site, GitHub requires that the repository's name have the following format: {username}.github.io (e.g. gitname.github.io)

      The name you enter will show up in a few places: (a) in references to the repository throughout GitHub, (b) in the URL of the repository, and (c) in the URL of the deployed React app.

      In this tutorial, I'll be deploying the React app as a project site.

      I'll enter: react-gh-pages

    • Repository privacy: Select Public (or Private*).

      * For GitHub Free users, the only type of repository that can be used with GitHub Pages is Public. For GitHub Pro users (and other paying users), both Public and Private repositories can be used with GitHub Pages.

      I'll choose: Public

    • Initialize repository: Leave all checkboxes empty.

      That will make it so GitHub creates an empty repository, instead of pre-populating the repository with a README.md, .gitignore, and/or LICENSE file.

  4. Submit the form.

At this point, your GitHub account contains an empty repository, having the name and privacy type that you specified.

2. Create a React app

  1. Create a React app named my-app:

    In case you want to use a different name from my-app (e.g. web-ui), you can accomplish that by replacing all occurrences of my-app in this tutorial, with that other name (i.e. my-app --> web-ui).

    $ npx create-react-app my-app

    That command will create a React app written in JavaScript. To create one written in TypeScript, you can issue this command instead:

    $ npx create-react-app my-app --template typescript

    That command will create a new folder named my-app, which will contain the source code of a React app.

    In addition to containing the source code of the React app, that folder is also a Git repository. That characteristic of the folder will come into play in Step 6.

    Branch names: master vs. main

    The Git repository will have one branch, which will be named either (a) master, the default for a fresh Git installation; or (b) the value of the Git configuration variable, init.defaultBranch, if your computer is running Git version 2.28 or later and you have set that variable in your Git configuration (e.g. via $ git config --global init.defaultBranch main).

    Since I have not set that variable in my Git installation, the branch in my repository will be named master. In case the branch in your repository has a different name (which you can check by running $ git branch), such as main; you can replace all occurrences of master throughout the remainder of this tutorial, with that other name (e.g. master → main).

  2. Enter the newly-created folder:

    $ cd my-app

At this point, there is a React app on your computer and you are in the folder that contains its source code. All of the remaining commands shown in this tutorial can be run from that folder.

3. Install the gh-pages npm package

  1. Install the gh-pages npm package and designate it as a development dependency:

    $ npm install gh-pages --save-dev

At this point, the gh-pages npm package is installed on your computer and the React app's dependence upon it is documented in the React app's package.json file.

4. Add a homepage property to the package.json file

  1. Open the package.json file in a text editor.

    $ vi package.json

    In this tutorial, the text editor I'll be using is vi. You can use any text editor you want; for example, Visual Studio Code.

  2. Add a homepage property in this format*: https://{username}.github.io/{repo-name}

    * For a project site, that's the format. For a user site, the format is: https://{username}.github.io. You can read more about the homepage property in the "GitHub Pages" section of the create-react-app documentation.

    {
  "name": "my-app",
  "version": "0.1.0",
+ "homepage": "https://gitname.github.io/react-gh-pages",
  "private": true,

At this point, the React app's package.json file includes a property named homepage.

5. Add deployment scripts to the package.json file

  1. Open the package.json file in a text editor (if it isn't already open in one).

    $ vi package.json

  2. Add a predeploy property and a deploy property to the scripts object:

    "scripts": {
+   "predeploy": "npm run build",
+   "deploy": "gh-pages -d build",
    "start": "react-scripts start",
    "build": "react-scripts build",

At this point, the React app's package.json file includes deployment scripts.

6. Add a "remote" that points to the GitHub repository

  1. Add a "remote" to the local Git repository.

    You can do that by issuing a command in this format:

    $ git remote add origin https://github.com/{username}/{repo-name}.git

    To customize that command for your situation, replace {username} with your GitHub username and replace {repo-name} with the name of the GitHub repository you created in Step 1.

    In my case, I'll run:

    $ git remote add origin https://github.com/gitname/react-gh-pages.git

    That command tells Git where I want it to push things whenever I—or the gh-pages npm package acting on my behalf—issue the $ git push command from within this local Git repository.

At this point, the local repository has a "remote" whose URL points to the GitHub repository you created in Step 1.

7. Push the React app to the GitHub repository

  1. Push the React app to the GitHub repository

    $ npm run deploy

    That will cause the predeploy and deploy scripts defined in package.json to run.

    Under the hood, the predeploy script will build a distributable version of the React app and store it in a folder named build. Then, the deploy script will push the contents of that folder to a new commit on the gh-pages branch of the GitHub repository, creating that branch if it doesn't already exist.

    By default, the new commit on the gh-pages branch will have a commit message of "Updates". You can specify a custom commit message via the -m option, like this:

    $ npm run deploy -- -m "Deploy React app to GitHub Pages"

At this point, the GitHub repository contains a branch named gh-pages, which contains the files that make up the distributable version of the React app. However, we haven't configured GitHub Pages to serve those files yet.

8. Configure GitHub Pages

  1. Navigate to the GitHub Pages settings page
    1. In your web browser, navigate to the GitHub repository
    2. Above the code browser, click on the tab labeled "Settings"
    3. In the sidebar, in the "Code and automation" section, click on "Pages"
  2. Configure the "Build and deployment" settings like this:
    1. Source: Deploy from a branch
    2. Branch:
      • Branch: gh-pages
      • Folder: / (root)
  3. Click on the "Save" button

That's it! The React app has been deployed to GitHub Pages! 🚀

At this point, the React app is accessible to anyone who visits the homepage URL you specified in Step 4. For example, the React app I deployed is accessible at https://gitname.github.io/react-gh-pages.

9. (Optional) Store the React app's source code on GitHub

In a previous step, the gh-pages npm package pushed the distributable version of the React app to a branch named gh-pages in the GitHub repository. However, the source code of the React app is not yet stored on GitHub.

In this step, I'll show you how you can store the source code of the React app on GitHub.

  1. Commit the changes you made while you were following this tutorial, to the master branch of the local Git repository; then, push that branch up to the master branch of the GitHub repository.

    $ git add .
$ git commit -m "Configure React app for deployment to GitHub Pages"
$ git push origin master

    I recommend exploring the GitHub repository at this point. It will have two branches: master and gh-pages. The master branch will contain the React app's source code, while the gh-pages branch will contain the distributable version of the React app.

References

  1. The official create-react-app deployment guide
  2. GitHub blog: Build and deploy GitHub Pages from any branch
  3. Preserving the CNAME file when using a custom domain

Notes

  • Special thanks to GitHub (the company) for providing us with the GitHub Pages hosting service for free.
  • And now, time to turn the default React app generated by create-react-app into something unique!
  • This repository consists of two branches:
    • master - the source code of the React app
    • gh-pages - the React app built from that source code

License

This project is licensed under the terms of the MIT license.

Using Abstract Syntax Trees With TypeScript and NestJs

Using Abstract Syntax Trees (ASTs) with TypeScript and NestJS can be a powerful approach to analyze, manipulate, and generate code. Here are some steps to leverage ASTs in your TypeScript and NestJS projects:

  1. Install Required Packages: Start by installing the necessary packages. The primary package you'll need is ts-migrate-parser, which provides AST-related utilities for TypeScript code. You can install it using npm or yarn:
npm install ts-migrate-parser
  1. Parse TypeScript Code: To work with ASTs, you need to parse your TypeScript code into an AST representation. You can use the ts-migrate-parser package to achieve this. Here's an example of parsing a TypeScript file:
import { parse } from 'ts-migrate-parser';

const code = `
  // Your TypeScript code here
`;

const ast = parse(code);
  1. Traverse and Analyze the AST: Once you have the AST representation, you can traverse and analyze it to extract relevant information or perform transformations. You can use popular AST traversal libraries like ts-migrate-traverse to traverse the AST nodes and apply transformations as needed. Here's an example of traversing the AST and extracting class declarations:
import { visitNode } from 'ts-migrate-traverse';
import { SyntaxKind } from 'ts-migrate-parser';

visitNode(ast, SyntaxKind.ClassDeclaration, (node) => {
  // Perform analysis or transformations on the class declarations
  console.log(node.name?.text);
});
  1. Generate Code from AST: You can also generate TypeScript code from the modified AST using code generation utilities. The ts-migrate-codegen package provides tools for generating TypeScript code from the AST. Here's an example of generating code from an AST:
import { generateCode } from 'ts-migrate-codegen';

const modifiedCode = generateCode(ast);
  1. Integrate with NestJS: In the context of NestJS, you can use ASTs to analyze and modify your NestJS codebase. For example, you can use ASTs to automatically generate routing information, perform code refactorings, or enforce coding conventions. You can combine AST traversal and code generation techniques with NestJS decorators and metadata to achieve these tasks.

Remember that working with ASTs requires a good understanding of the TypeScript compiler API and the specific structures of NestJS. It's recommended to refer to the TypeScript documentation, NestJS documentation, and the documentation of the AST-related packages for detailed usage instructions and examples.

By leveraging Abstract Syntax Trees in your TypeScript and NestJS projects, you can gain more flexibility and control over your code analysis and generation processes, enabling advanced code manipulation and automation.