Forge React App

Create React apps with no build configuration. (TypeScript or ECMAScript)

• Creating an App – How to create a new app.

Forge React App works on macOS, Windows, and Linux.
If something doesn’t work, please file an issue.

Quick Overview

npx forge-react-app@latest my-app
cd my-app
npm start

Then open http://localhost:9000/ to see your app.
When you’re ready to deploy to production, create a minified bundle with npm run build.

Get Started Immediately

You don’t need to install or configure tools like Webpack or Babel.
They are preconfigured so that you can focus on the code.

Just create a project, and you’re good to go.

Creating an App

You’ll need to have Node 14 or later on your local development machine (but it’s not required on the server). You can use nvm (macOS/Linux) or nvm-windows to easily switch Node versions between different projects.

To create a new app, you may choose one of the following methods:

npx

npx forge-react-app@latest my-app

npm

npm i -g forge-react-app

forge-react-app my-app

It will create a directory called my-app inside the current folder.
Inside that directory, it will generate the initial project structure and install the transitive dependencies.

my-app
│   .babelrc
│   .gitignore
│   package.json
│
├───devtools
│       webpack.common.js
│       webpack.dev.js
│       webpack.prod.js
│       setUpTests.js
│
└───src
    │   index.js
    │   index.html
    │   App.js
    │
    ├───styles
    │       StyledApp.js
    │
    └───__tests__
            App.test.js

No configuration or complicated folder structures, just the files you need to build your app.
Once the installation is done, you can open your project folder:

cd my-app

Inside the newly created project, you can run some built-in commands:

npm start or yarn start

Runs the app in development mode.
Open http://localhost:9000 to view it in the browser.

The page will automatically reload if you make changes to the code.
You will see the build errors and lint warnings in the console.

npm test or yarn test

Runs the test watcher in an interactive mode.

npm run build or yarn build

Builds the app for production to the dist folder.
It correctly bundles React in production mode and optimizes the build for the best performance.

The build is minified and the filenames include the hashes.

Your app is ready to be deployed.

Main dependencies

Package	Version	Details
React	^18
TypeScript	^4	for the TypeScript version
Jest	^29
Testing Library	^13
Babel	^7
Webpack	^5

Feedback and suggestions

If you want to leave some suggestions or give me constructive feedback please don't hesitate to file an issue.

License

Forge React App is open source software licensed as MIT.