Create React App companion for universal app

by React

cra-universal

Create React App companion for universal app. No eject, zero config with customization, supports string and node stream API.

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Features

  • No eject needed!
  • Zero config by default and customizable
  • Server-side rendering for your SEO
  • Code-splitting that works universally
  • The core middleware is fully unit-tested
  • Works alongside react-scripts, not as replacement

Prerequisites

  • Node >= 8.6 recommended
  • npx is required

Installation

# Create new cra
create-react-app myapp
cd myapp

# Install new cra-universal
yarn add -D cra-universal

# Install peer dependency
yarn add @cra-express/core

Client code change

Please update your render method on src/index.js

// before
ReactDOM.render(...)

// after
ReactDOM.hydrate(...)

Development

# Start CRA client
npm start

## Start CRA server, then open http://localhost:3001 in your browser
npx cra-universal start

Production

# Change directory to your project root first, and run:
npx cra-universal build

# This command will build both client and server and put them into `./dist`

Deployment

  1. First, follow the Production guide mentioned above.
  2. Since the bundle used Webpack Node Externals, you need to run npm install --production on the copied /dist, but this time you don't need to install its devDependencies
  3. Use process manager like PM2 to run your server, your run target is ./dist/server/bundle.js

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