Generate React CLI

Why?

To help speed up productivity in React projects and stop copying, pasting, and renaming files each time you want to create a new component.

A short article that goes a little deeper into why we created GRC if you have the time.

Suppose you enjoy learning by watching tutorial videos. Here's an excellent video on how to use GRC by Eric Murphy.

A few notes:

Now supports custom component types (read more). 🎉
Now supports custom component templates (read more). 🎉
Now supports custom component files (read more). 🎉
Supports React TypeScript projects.
Supports two different component testing libraries - Testing Library and Enzyme - that work with Jest. We assume that you have these libraries already configured in your React project.
It follows grouping by feature because we believe when you look at a component, you should see all of its corresponding files (i.e., stylesheet, test, and component) under one folder with the feature name. We feel this approach provides a better developer experience.

You can run it using npx like this:

  npx generate-react-cli component Box

(npx is a package runner tool that comes with npm 5.2+)

Config File

When you run GRC within your project the first time, it will ask you a series of questions to customize the cli for your project needs (this will create a "generate-react-cli.json" config file).

Example of the generate-react-cli.json config file:

{
  "usesTypeScript": false,
  "usesCssModule": true,
  "cssPreprocessor": "scss",
  "testLibrary": "Testing Library",
  "component": {
    "default": {
      "path": "src/components",
      "withLazy": false,
      "withStory": false,
      "withStyle": true,
      "withTest": true
    }
  }
}

Generate Components

  npx generate-react-cli component Box

This command will create a folder with your component name within your default (e.g. src/components) directory, and its corresponding files.

Example of the component files structure:

|-- /src
    |-- /components
        |-- /Box
            |-- Box.js
            |-- Box.css
            |-- Box.test.js

Options

You can also override some of the GRC component config rules using one-off commands. So for example, let's say you have set withTest to be true in the component.default property. You can override it like this:

  npx generate-react-cli component Box --withTest=false

Or vice versa, if you have set withTest to be false you can do this:

  npx generate-react-cli component Box --withTest=true

Otherwise, if you don't pass any options, it will just use the default values that you have set in the GRC config file under component.default.

Options	Description	Value Type	Default Value
--path	Value of the path where you want the component to be generated in (e.g. src/components).	String	`component.default.path`
--type	You can pass a custom component type that you have configured in the GRC config file that has its own set of component config rules. Read more about custom component types.	String	`component.default`
--withLazy	Creates a corresponding lazy file (a file that lazy-loads your component out of the box and enables code splitting) with this component.	Boolean	`component.default.withLazy`
--withStory	Creates a corresponding (storybook) story file with this component.	Boolean	`component.default.withStory`
--withStyle	Creates a corresponding stylesheet file with this component.	Boolean	`component.default.withStyle`
--withTest	Creates a corresponding test file with this component.	Boolean	`component.default.withTest`

Custom component types:

By default, GRC will use the component.default configuration rules when running the component command out of the box.

What if you wanted to generate other types of components that have their own set of config rules (e.g., page or layout)?

You can do so by extending the generate-react-cli.json config file like this.

{
  "usesTypeScript": false,
  "usesCssModule": true,
  "cssPreprocessor": "scss",
  "testLibrary": "Testing Library",
  "component": {
    "default": {
      "path": "src/components",
      "withLazy": false,
      "withStory": false,
      "withStyle": true,
      "withTest": true
    },
    "page": {
      "path": "src/pages",
      "withLazy": true,
      "withStory": false,
      "withStyle": true,
      "withTest": true
    },
    "layout": {
      "path": "src/layout",
      "withLazy": false,
      "withStory": false,
      "withStyle": false,
      "withTest": true
    }
  }
}

Now you can generate a component with your custom component types like this:

  npx generate-react-cli component HomePage --type=page

  npx generate-react-cli component BoxLayout --type=layout

You can also pass the same options to your custom component types as you would for the default component type.

Custom component templates

You can also create your own custom templates that GRC can use instead of the built-in templates that come with it. We hope this will provide more flexibility for your components that you want to generate.

There is an optional customTemplates object that you can pass to the component.default or any of your custom component types within your generate-react-cli.json config file.

Example of the `customTemplates` object:

"customTemplates": {
  "component": "templates/TemplateName.js",
  "lazy":  "templates/TemplateName.lazy.js",
  "story":  "templates/TemplateName.story.js",
  "style": "templates/TemplateName.style.scss",
  "test":  "templates/TemplateName.test.js"
},

The keys represent the type of file, and the values are the paths that point to where your custom template lives in your project/system. Please note the TemplateName keyword in the template filename. GRC will use this keyword and replace it with your component name as the filename.

You can also use the following keywords, which will be replaced with their corresponding formatted component name:

Keyword	Replacement
`templateName`	component name in camelCase
`template-name`	component name in kebab-case
`template_name`	component name in snake_case

Example of using the `customTemplates` object within your generate-react-cli.json config file:

{
  "usesTypeScript": false,
  "usesCssModule": true,
  "cssPreprocessor": "scss",
  "testLibrary": "Testing Library",
  "component": {
    "default": {
      "customTemplates": {
        "component": "templates/component/TemplateName.js",
        "style": "templates/component/TemplateName.style.scss",
        "test": "templates/component/TemplateName.test.js"
      },
      "path": "src/components",
      "withStyle": true,
      "withTest": true,
      "withStory": true,
      "withLazy": false
    },
    "page": {
      "customTemplates": {
        "test": "templates/page/TemplateName.test.js"
      },
      "path": "src/pages",
      "withLazy": true,
      "withStory": false,
      "withStyle": true,
      "withTest": true
    }
  }
}

Notice in the page.customTemplates that we only specified the test custom template type. That's because all the custom template types are optional. If you don't set the other types, GRC will default to using the built-in templates it comes with.

Example of a custom component template file:

// templates/component/TemplateName.js

import React from 'react';
import styles from './TemplateName.module.css';

const TemplateName = () => (
  <div className={styles.TemplateName} data-testid="TemplateName">
    <h1>TemplateName component</h1>
  </div>
);

export default TemplateName;

Important - Make sure to use the TemplateName keyword in your templates as well. GRC will also use this keyword to replace it with your component name.

Example of a custom test template file:

// templates/component/TemplateName.test.js

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import TemplateName from './TemplateName';

it('It should mount', () => {
  const div = document.createElement('div');
  ReactDOM.render(<TemplateName />, div);
  ReactDOM.unmountComponentAtNode(div);
});

Custom component files

GRC comes with corresponding built-in files for a given component if you need them (i.e., withStyle, withTest, withStory, and withLazy).

What if you wanted to add custom files of your own?

For example, let's say you wanted to add an index.js file for each component, so you don't have to add the additional component name with each import (i.e., import Box from './components/Box' instead of import Box from './components/Box/Box').

Or maybe you need an additional style file for your component stories.

You can do so by editing your generate-react-cli.json config file like so.

{
  "usesTypeScript": false,
  "usesCssModule": false,
  "cssPreprocessor": "css",
  "testLibrary": "Testing Library",
  "component": {
    "default": {
      "path": "src/components",
      "withStyle": true,
      "withTest": true,
      "withStory": true,
      "withLazy": false,
      "withIndex": true,
      "withStoryStyle": true,
      "customTemplates": {
        "index": "templates/default/index.js",
        "storyStyle": "templates/default/TemplateName.stories.css"
      }
    }
  }
}

// templates/default/index.js

export { default } from './TemplateName';

/* templates/default/TemplateName.stories.css */

.TemplateName {}

In this case, we added a withIndex & withStoryStyle to the component.default. Note: You can add custom files to any of your custom component types.

You should also see that we added index and storyStyle to our customTemplates object. That's because custom files require custom templates. Otherwise, you will get an error when you generate a component.

Also, we used the TemplateName keyword for the storyStyle custom file. GRC will generate this corresponding file and replace TemplateName with the component name.

License

Generate React CLI is open source software licensed as MIT.

wontondon/generate-react-cli