JAMStack + Netlify + Astra + Cassandra Example 📒

This is an example React To-Do application using a DataStax Astra free tier database.

The project interacts directly with the database from the ReactJS frontend and can be deployed to Netlify for free with a few clicks.

Contributor(s): Sebastián Estévez, based on the work of Jake Luciani

Open in Gitpod Deploy to Netlify

Objectives

  • Provide a fullstack development example using Astra as the storage backend

How this works

Once the Astra credentials are provided, the necessary tables are created in the database. The webservice will be available on port 8080 once the application has been deployed.

JAMstack is a big leap forward in how we can write web applications that are easy to write, deploy, scale, and also maintain. Using this approach means that newly created content is rendered from a content API, while a static render of it is being built into the site for future.

Getting Started Paths:

  1. Run the app locally
  2. Run the app on Gitpod
  3. Deploy the app to Netlify

Running on your local machine

  1. Create a DataStax Astra account and free-tier Cassandra database: image
  2. Click 'Use this template' at the top of the README: image
  3. Enter a repository name and click 'Create repository from template': image
  4. Clone the repository on your local machine: image
  5. cd to the cloned repository, and install Node dependencies: npm install.
  6. Find the values for the Astra variables from the Astra database dashboard. One exception is the ASTRA_DB_ID variable. It is the string in the URL after https://astra.datastax.com/org/. Set ASTRA_DB_USERNAME, ASTRA_DB_PASSWORD, ASTRA_DB_KEYSPACE, ASTRA_DB_ID, and ASTRA_DB_REGION environment variables using the shell command export <ENV_VAR_NAME>=<value>.
  7. In the cloned repository, build the app: npm start.
  8. Open http://localhost:8080 to view your application: image

Running on Gitpod

  1. Create a DataStax Astra account and free-tier Cassandra database: image
  2. Once you have created both an Astra account and database, click the 'Open in Gitpod' link:

Open in Gitpod

  1. Wait for your Gitpod workspace to start: image
  2. Set your Astra database details in the Gitpod terminal at the bottom of the screen: image You can find your database id in the Astra user-interface here: image
  3. Click the 'Open browser' button in the bottom right of the screen: image
  4. View your application: image

Deploying to Netlify

  1. Create a DataStax Astra account and free-tier Cassandra database: image
  2. Once you have created both an Astra account and database, click the 'Deploy to Netlify' button:

Deploy to Netlify

  1. Connect your GitHub account: image
  2. Fill in the Netlify environment variables with information on your Astra database: image You can find your database id here in the Astra user-interface here: image
  3. Click 'Save and Deploy': image
  4. Wait for your app to deploy (this will take a minute or two, the screen will auto-refresh when the deployment is complete): image
  5. Click your Netlify app link to view your live app: image
  6. You've deployed your app to Netlify! image

Things to Note: