React Redux Starter Kit

This starter kit is designed to get you up and running with a bunch of awesome new front-end technologies, all on top of a configurable, feature-rich webpack build system that's already setup to provide hot reloading, CSS modules with Sass support, unit testing, code coverage reports, bundle splitting, and a whole lot more.

The primary goal of this project is to remain as unopinionated as possible. Its purpose is not to dictate your project structure or to demonstrate a complete sample application, but to provide a set of tools intended to make front-end development robust, easy, and, most importantly, fun. Check out the full feature list below!

Finally, This project wouldn't be possible without the help of our many contributors, so thank you for all of your help.

Features
Requirements
Getting Started
Application Structure
Development
Developer Tools
Routing
Testing
Deployment
Build System
Configuration
Root Resolve
Globals
Styles
Server
Production Optimization
Learning Resources
FAQ
Thank You

Features

Requirements

node ^4.2.0
npm ^3.0.0

Getting Started

After confirming that your development environment meets the specified requirements, you can create a new project based on react-redux-starter-kit in one of two ways:

Install from source

First, clone or download:

$ git clone git@github.com:janoist1/universal-react-redux-starter-kit.git
// or
$ wget -O react-redux-starter-kit.zip https://github.com/janoist1/universal-react-redux-starter-kit/archive/master.zip
$ unzip react-redux-starter-kit.zip

Then, rename to your project name and change into the directory:

$ mv react-redux-starter-kit <my-project-name>
$ cd <my-project-name>

Alternatively, install via `redux-cli`

If not already installed (globally):

$ npm i redux-cli -g

Then, create a new project:

$ redux new <my-project-name>
$ cd <my-project-name>

Install dependencies, and check to see it works

$ npm install                   # Install project dependencies
$ npm start                     # Compile and launch

If everything works, you should see the following:

While developing, you will probably rely mostly on npm start; however, there are additional scripts at your disposal:

`npm run <script>`	Description
`start`	Serves your app at `localhost:3000`. HMR will be enabled in development.
`start:dev`	Same as `start` but overrides `NODE_ENV` to "development".
`start:prod`	Serves your app at `localhost:3000`. Production environment.
`compile`	Compiles the application to disk (`~/dist` by default).
`dev`	Same as `npm start`, but enables nodemon for the server as well.
`dev:no-debug`	Same as `npm run dev` but disables devtool instrumentation.
`test`	Runs unit tests with Karma and generates a coverage report.
`test:dev`	Runs Karma and watches for changes to re-run tests; does not generate coverage reports.
`deploy`	Runs linter, tests, and then, on success, compiles your application to disk.
`deploy:dev`	Same as `deploy` but overrides `NODE_ENV` to "development".
`deploy:prod`	Same as `deploy` but overrides `NODE_ENV` to "production".
`lint`	Lint all `.js` files.
`lint:fix`	Lint and fix all `.js` files. Read more on this.

Application Structure

The application structure presented in this boilerplate is fractal, where functionality is grouped primarily by feature rather than file type. Please note, however, that this structure is only meant to serve as a guide, it is by no means prescriptive. That said, it aims to represent generally accepted guidelines and patterns for building scalable applications. If you wish to read more about this pattern, please check out this awesome writeup by Justin Greenberg.

.
├── bin                      # Build/Start scripts
├── blueprints               # Blueprint files for redux-cli
├── build                    # All build-related configuration
│   └── webpack              # Environment-specific configuration files for webpack
├── config                   # Project configuration settings
├── server                   # Koa application (uses webpack middleware)
│   └── main.js              # Server application entry point
├── src                      # Application source code
│   ├── index.html           # Main HTML page container for app
│   ├── main.js              # Application bootstrap and rendering
│   ├── components           # Reusable Presentational Components
│   ├── containers           # Reusable Container Components
│   ├── layouts              # Components that dictate major page structure
│   ├── redux                # "Ducks" location...
│   │   └── modules          # reducer, action, creators not part of a route
│   ├── routes               # Main route definitions and async split points
│   │   ├── index.js         # Bootstrap main application routes with store
│   │   └── Home             # Fractal route
│   │       ├── index.js     # Route definitions and async split points
│   │       ├── assets       # Assets required to render components
│   │       ├── components   # Presentational React Components
│   │       ├── container    # Connect components to actions and store
│   │       ├── modules      # Collections of reducers/constants/actions
│   │       └── routes **    # Fractal sub-routes (** optional)
│   ├── static               # Static assets (not imported anywhere in source code)
│   ├── store                # Redux-specific pieces
│   │   ├── createStore.js   # Create and instrument redux store
│   │   └── reducers.js      # Reducer registry and injection
│   └── styles               # Application-wide styles (generally settings)
└── tests                    # Unit tests

Development

Developer Tools

We recommend using the Redux DevTools Chrome Extension. Using the chrome extension allows your monitors to run on a separate thread and affords better performance and functionality. It comes with several of the most popular monitors, is easy to configure, filters actions, and doesn’t require installing any packages.

However, adding the DevTools components to your project is simple. First, grab the packages from npm:

npm i --save-dev redux-devtools redux-devtools-log-monitor redux-devtools-dock-monitor

Then follow the manual integration walkthrough.

`redux-cli`

npm install redux-cli --save-dev

Routing

We use react-router route definitions (<route>/index.js) to define units of logic within our application. See the application structure section for more information.

Testing

To add a unit test, simply create a .spec.js file anywhere in ~/tests. Karma will pick up on these files automatically, and Mocha and Chai will be available within your test without the need to import them. If you are using redux-cli, test files should automatically be generated when you create a component or redux module.

Coverage reports will be compiled to ~/coverage by default. If you wish to change what reporters are used and where reports are compiled, you can do so by modifying coverage_reporters in ~/config/index.js.

Deployment

Out of the box, this starter kit is deployable by serving the ~/dist folder generated by npm run deploy (make sure to specify your target NODE_ENV as well). This project does not concern itself with the details of server-side rendering or API structure, since that demands an opinionated structure that makes it difficult to extend the starter kit. However, if you do need help with more advanced deployment strategies, here are a few tips:

Static Deployments

If you are serving the application via a web server such as nginx, make sure to direct incoming routes to the root ~/dist/index.html file and let react-router take care of the rest. If you are unsure of how to do this, you might find this documentation helpful. The Koa server that comes with the starter kit is able to be extended to serve as an API or whatever else you need, but that's entirely up to you.

Heroku

Heroku has nodejs buildpack script that does the following when you deploy your app to Heroku.

Find packages.json in the root directory.
Install nodejs and npm packages.
Run npm postinstall script
Run npm start

Therefore, you need to modify package.json before deploying to Heroku. Make the following changes in the scripts section of package.json.

...
"start": "better-npm-run start:prod",
"serve": "better-npm-run start",
"postinstall": "npm run deploy:prod",
"betterScripts": {
  ...
  "start:prod": {
    "command": "babel-node bin/server",
    "env": {
      "NODE_ENV": "production"
    }
  }
  ...
},

It's also important to tell Heroku to install all devDependencies to successfully compile your app on Heroku's environment. Run the following in your terminal.

$ heroku config:set NPM_CONFIG_PRODUCTION=false

With this setup, you will install all the necessray packages, build your app, and start the webserver (e.g. koa) everytime you push your app to Heroku. Try to deploy to Heroku by running the following commands.

$ git add .
$ git commit -m 'My awesome commit'
$ git push heroku master

If you fail to deploy for an unknown reason, try this helpful comment by DonHansDampf addressing Heroku deployments.

Have more questions? Feel free to submit an issue or join the Gitter chat!

Build System

Configuration

Default project configuration can be found in ~/config/index.js. Here you'll be able to redefine your src and dist directories, adjust compilation settings, tweak your vendor dependencies, and more. For the most part, you should be able to make changes in here without ever having to touch the actual webpack build configuration.

If you need environment-specific overrides (useful for dynamically setting API endpoints, for example), you can edit ~/config/environments.js and define overrides on a per-NODE_ENV basis. There are examples for both development and production, so use those as guidelines. Here are some common configuration options:

Key	Description
`dir_src`	application source code base path
`dir_dist`	path to build compiled application to
`server_host`	hostname for the Koa server
`server_port`	port for the Koa server
`compiler_css_modules`	whether or not to enable CSS modules
`compiler_devtool`	what type of source-maps to generate (set to `false`/`null` to disable)
`compiler_vendor`	packages to separate into to the vendor bundle

Root Resolve

Webpack is configured to make use of resolve.root, which lets you import local packages as if you were traversing from the root of your ~/src directory. Here's an example:

// current file: ~/src/views/some/nested/View.js
// What used to be this:
import SomeComponent from '../../../components/SomeComponent'

// Can now be this:
import SomeComponent from 'components/SomeComponent' // Hooray!

Globals

These are global variables available to you anywhere in your source code. If you wish to modify them, they can be found as the globals key in ~/config/index.js. When adding new globals, make sure you also add them to ~/.eslintrc.

Variable	Description
`process.env.NODE_ENV`	the active `NODE_ENV` when the build started
`__DEV__`	True when `process.env.NODE_ENV` is `development`
`__PROD__`	True when `process.env.NODE_ENV` is `production`
`__TEST__`	True when `process.env.NODE_ENV` is `test`
`__DEBUG__`	True when `process.env.NODE_ENV` is `development` and cli arg `--no_debug` is not set (`npm run dev:no-debug`)
`__BASENAME__`	history basename option

Styles

Both .scss and .css file extensions are supported out of the box and are configured to use CSS Modules. After being imported, styles will be processed with PostCSS for minification and autoprefixing, and will be extracted to a .css file during production builds.

Server

This starter kit comes packaged with an Koa server. It's important to note that the sole purpose of this server is to provide webpack-dev-middleware and webpack-hot-middleware for hot module replacement. Using a custom Koa app in place of webpack-dev-server makes it easier to extend the starter kit to include functionality such as API's, universal rendering, and more -- all without bloating the base boilerplate.

Production Optimization

Babel is configured to use babel-plugin-transform-runtime so transforms aren't inlined. In production, webpack will extract styles to a .css file, minify your JavaScript, and perform additional optimizations such as module deduplication.

Universal / Server rendering

This starter kit supports universal rendering by setting the configuration key universal.enabled to true. It compiles the project using the configuration from build/webpack.config.server.js then uses it as a Koa middleware.

Learning Resources

Starting out with react-redux-starter-kit is an introduction to the components used in this starter kit with a small example in the end.

FAQ

Having trouble? Check out our FAQ or submit an issue. Please be considerate by only posting issues that are directly related to this project; questions about how to implement certain React or Redux features are both best suited for StackOverflow or their respective repositories.

Thank You

This project wouldn't be possible without help from the community, so I'd like to highlight some of its biggest contributors. Thank you all for your hard work, you've made my life a lot easier and taught me a lot in the process.

Justin Greenberg - For all of your PR's, getting us to Babel 6, and constant work improving our patterns.
Roman Pearah - For your bug reports, help in triaging issues, and PR contributions.
Spencer Dixin - For your creation of redux-cli.
Jonas Matser - For your help in triaging issues and unending support in our Gitter channel.

And to everyone else who has contributed, even if you are not listed here your work is appreciated.

janoist1/universal-react-redux-starter-kit