Using GitHub to deploy the ReactJS app

ReactJS is a very popular front-end library to build user interfaces. And you might have developed an excellent app using react but struggling to get it to the users. In this article, I will walk you through the steps to use Github pages and deploy the app.

Prerequisties:
Git
Github Account
NodeJS

First thing first, set up the repo.
Log in to GitHub and go to this link to create a new repository.
It should look something like this.

Now, that we have a repository let’s clone it and get the react setup. Command for it.

Use node version >14. This was done using v16.19.0

git clone git@github.com:samit22/host-react-site.git
# Replace it with your site. And let's use npx command to set up the react boiler. 
npx create-react-app host-react-site 
cd host-react-site

Now you should be able to run npm start and the app should open in the browser—something like this.

npm start

Now that we have a react app, let’s work on deploying it.

Use the below command to install gh-pages and its dependency.

npm install gh-pages --save-dev

Check the file structure in your site, it should have a package.json file. It’s like the configuration for your project.

{
  "name": "host-react-site",
  "version": "0.1.1",
  "private": true,
  "dependencies": {
    "@testing-library/jest-dom": "^5.16.5",
    "@testing-library/react": "^13.4.0",
    "@testing-library/user-event": "^13.5.0",
    "react": "^18.2.0",
    "react-dom": "^18.2.0",
    "react-scripts": "5.0.1",
    "web-vitals": "^2.1.4"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@types/react": "17.0.20",
    "@types/react-dom": "17.0.9",
    "gh-pages": "^5.0.0",
    "typescript": "4.4.2"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "start": "react-scripts start",
    "build": "react-scripts build",
    "test": "react-scripts test",
    "eject": "react-scripts eject"
  },
  "eslintConfig": {
    "extends": [
      "react-app",
      "react-app/jest"
    ]
  },
  "browserslist": {
    "production": [
      ">0.2%",
      "not dead",
      "not op_mini all"
    ],
    "development": [
      "last 1 chrome version",
      "last 1 firefox version",
      "last 1 safari version"
    ]
  }
}

Let’s add the homepage here.

It’s the GitHub page URL
https://{github-user_name}.github.io/{repo-name}

For this test, this is the site.
https://samit22.github.io/host-react-site/

{
  "homepage": "https://samit22.github.io/host-react-site",
  "name": "..."
}

Let’s add two properties inside the script

That would look like this.

"predeploy": "npm run build",
"deploy": "gh-pages -d build"

Now let’s deploy the app using the command

Deploy command

npm run deploy

Looks something like this.

Our page will be live at
https://samit22.github.io/host-react-site/

We can also check this from the settings -> pages section of the repository

Link:
https://{github-user_name}.github.io/{repo-name}/settings/pages

If you have any questions you can always reach out to me.
Thanks.