Good things come in pairs
Looking to mix up a backend with express
/sequelize
and a frontend with
react
/redux
? That's boilermaker
!
Follow along with the boilerplate workshop to make your own! This canonical version can serve as a reference, or a starting point. For an in depth discussion into the code that makes up this repository, see the Boilermaker Guided Tour
To use this as boilerplate, you'll need to take the following steps:
- Don't fork or clone this repo! Instead, create a new, empty
directory on your machine and
git init
(or create an empty repo on Github and clone it to your local machine) - Run the following commands:
git remote add boilermaker https://github.com/FullstackAcademy/boilermaker.git
git fetch boilermaker
git merge boilermaker/master
Why did we do that? Because every once in a while, boilermaker
may
be updated with additional features or bug fixes, and you can easily
get those changes from now on by entering:
git fetch boilermaker
git merge boilermaker/master
Now that you've got the code, follow these steps to get acclimated:
- Update project name and description in
package.json
and.travis.yml
files npm install
- Create two postgres databases (
MY_APP_NAME
should match thename
parameter inpackage.json
):
export MY_APP_NAME=boilermaker
createdb $MY_APP_NAME
createdb $MY_APP_NAME-test
- By default, running
npm test
will useboilermaker-test
, while regular development usesboilermaker
- Create a file called
secrets.js
in the project root- This file is listed in
.gitignore
, and will only be required in your development environment - Its purpose is to attach the secret environment variables that you will use while developing
- However, it's very important that you not push it to Github! Otherwise, prying eyes will find your secret API keys!
- It might look like this:
- This file is listed in
Linters are fundamental to any project. They ensure that your code has a consistent style, which is critical to writing readable code.
Boilermaker comes with a working linter (ESLint, with
eslint-config-fullstack
) "out of the box." However, everyone has
their own style, so we recommend that you and your team work out yours
and stick to it. Any linter rule that you object to can be "turned
off" in .eslintrc.json
. You may also choose an entirely different
config if you don't like ours:
Running npm run start-dev
will make great things happen!
If you want to run the server and/or webpack
separately, you can also
npm run start-server
and npm run build-client
.
From there, just follow your bliss.
Ready to go world wide? Here's a guide to deployment! There are two supported ways to deploy in Boilermaker:
- automatically, via continuous deployment with Travis.
- "manually", from your local machine via the
deploy
script.
Either way, you'll need to set up your deployment server to start. The steps below are also covered in the CI/CD workshop.
- Set up the Heroku command line tools
heroku login
- Add a git remote for heroku:
-
If you are creating a new app...
heroku create
orheroku create your-app-name
if you have a name in mind.heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:hobby-dev
to add ("provision") a postgres database to your heroku dyno
-
If you already have a Heroku app...
heroku git:remote your-app-name
You'll need to be a collaborator on the app.
NOTE that this step assumes that Travis-CI is already testing your code.
Continuous Integration is not about testing per se – it's about continuously
integrating your changes into the live application, instead of periodically
releasing new versions. CI tools can not only test your code, but then
automatically deploy your app. This is known as Continuous Deployment.
Boilermaker comes with a .travis.yml
configuration almost ready for
continuous deployment; follow these steps to the job.
- Run the following commands to create a new branch:
git checkout master
git pull
git checkout -b f/travis-deploy
- Run the following script to finish configuring
travis.yml
:npm run heroku-token
This will use yourheroku
CLI (that you configured previously, if not then see above) to generate an authentication token. It will then useopenssl
to encrypt this token using a public key that Travis has generated for you. It will then update your.travis.yml
file with the encrypted value to be sent with thesecure
key under theapi_key
. - Run the following commands to commit these changes
git add .travis.yml
git commit -m 'travis: activate deployment'
git push -u origin f/travis-deploy
- Make a Pull Request for the new branch, get it approved, and merge it into the master branch.
NOTE that this script depends on your local origin
Git remote matching
your GitHub URL, and your local heroku
remote matching the name of your
Heroku app. This is only an issue if you rename your GitHub organization,
repository name or Heroku app name. You can update these values using
git remote
and its related commands.
There is a procedure to complete the above steps by installing the official Travis CLI tools. This requires a recent Ruby, but this step should not be, strictly speaking, necessary. Only explore this option when the above has failed.
That's it! From now on, whenever master
is updated on GitHub, Travis
will automatically push the app to Heroku for you.
Your local copy of the application can be pushed up to Heroku at will, using Boilermaker's handy deployment script:
- Make sure that all your work is fully committed and merged into your master branch on Github.
- If you currently have an existing branch called "deploy", delete
it now (
git branch -d deploy
). We will use a dummy branch with the namedeploy
(see below), so and the script below will error if a branch with that name already exists. npm run deploy
_ this will cause the following commands to happen in order: _git checkout -b deploy
: checks out a new branch calleddeploy
. Note that the namedeploy
here is not magical, but it needs to match the name of the branch we specify when we push to ourheroku
remote. _webpack -p
: webpack will run in "production mode" _git add -f public/bundle.js public/bundle.js.map
: "force" add these files which are listed in.gitignore
. _git commit --allow-empty -m 'Deploying'
: create a commit, even if nothing changed _git push --force heroku deploy:master
: push your localdeploy
branch to themaster
branch onheroku
_git checkout master
: return to your master branch _git branch -D deploy
: remove the deploy branch
Now, you should be deployed!
Why do all of these steps? The big reason is because we don't want our
production server to be cluttered up with dev dependencies like
webpack
, but at the same time we don't want our development
git-tracking to be cluttered with production build files like
bundle.js
! By doing these steps, we make sure our development and
production environments both stay nice and clean!