@guardian/braze-components

Braze Components

A library of React components for displaying Braze messages on DCR and frontend.

Braze messages are exposed in two ways to address two separate use cases.

1. One-shot messages
2. Persistent notifications

One-shot messages use Braze's in-app messages to show a user a single message impression. This is analagous to an ad impression. As with ads, these messages are often competing with other systems for shared message slots on the page. These messages are exposed by the BrazeMessages class.

Persistent notifications are backed by Braze content cards. These notifications persist until they are dismissed (automatically or by the user), or they expire. Notifications from different sources can peacfully co-exist. These notifications are exposed by the BrazeCards class.

Development

Local Setup

$ bin/setup

Storybook

We use Storybook when building components. Run Storybook with:

$ yarn storybook

The Grid image picker integration in Storybook requires auth. If necessary you'll be redirected to the gutools login service. When developing, this means running the login service locally. Often when developing you won't need to use the image picker. In this case you can skip auth entirely by running Storybook like this:

$ STORYBOOK_DISABLE_AUTH=true yarn storybook

This means you won't need to run the login service locally.

Point a project to your local version of @guardian/braze-components

Use yarn link to develop against a locally checked out version of this library:

In your local checkout of @guardian/braze-components:

$ yarn link

And then in the project consuming the client (e.g. DCR/frontend):

$ yarn link "@guardian/braze-components"

To revert back to using the published version of the package:

$ yarn unlink "@guardian/braze-components"
$ yarn install --force

NOTE:

• Ensure you build this library before adding it locally to your project, by running yarn build. You can also use yarn watch to build automatically when the source code is changed.

• The external project (e.g. DCR/frontend) may not be set up to watch changes from linked modules. Removing: ignored: /node_modules/, from watchOptions in frontend will enable make watch (in frontend) to also track changes to braze-components.

Publishing to NPM

You'll need to be part of the @guardian NPM org. Ask someone to add you if you're not already.

$ yarn release

This will:

• Build the package
• Interactively ask for a new version number (and create a commit for the version change in package.json)
• Publish the new release to NPM
• Push new commits/tags to GitHub

Gotchas and notes on releasing

Sometimes when releasing you might see a warning:

The following new files will not be part of your published package

and a list of source files. This is expected for any new source files which aren't included in the release package (for example, uncompiled TypeScript) as we only ship JS and TS definitions.

Steps following merge to main

For braze-components:

• Merge braze-components PR to main (in GitHub)
• In local iTerm, checkout main branch and git pull
• Run yarn release and follow instructions to bump the repo version and generate NPM
• When the GitHub release page displays in the browser, review and complete release

For dotcom-rendering:

• Run checkout main branch and git pull
• Run checkout -b to start a new branch for the update PR
• Update the braze-components dependency in dotcom-components/dotcom-components/package.json
• Run yarn to update the yarn.lock file in the DCR root
• Push the branch and create the PR in GitHub.
• If the change involves visual changes to components, capture this via screenshots and include in the PR
• If the change involves updates to component layout, add code to DCR Storybook files to reflect those changes
• If necessary (it isn't always), take DCR CODE (announce first in the P&E/Dotcom CODE Semaphore chat) and deploy code there.
• If all is good and the PR is approved, merge PR to main (in GitHub)

For frontend:

• Run checkout main branch and git pull
• Run checkout -b to start a new branch for the update PR
• Update the braze-components dependency in /package.json
• Run make install compile to update dependency lock file
• Push the branch and create the PR in GitHub.
• If necessary (it isn't always), take Frontend CODE (announce first in the P&E/Dotcom CODE Semaphore chat) and deploy code there.
• If all is good and the PR is approved, merge PR to main (in GitHub)

CI/CD

Whenever you push to GitHub actions will be triggered to run Jest tests, the TypeScript compiler etc. A TeamCity build will also be triggered. On the main branch if the TeamCity build is successful Riff Raff will deploy Storybook to https://braze-components.gutools.co.uk.