Create Next React App

This package includes a set of scripts that makes configuring a project easier. It is intended to be the likes of Create React App but for NextJS applications.

If you want to start a new project, see create-next-react-app.

If you want to migrate an existing project, please refer to the folder structure, or the template folder. The folder is following the one of CRA to make migrations between the 2 as painless as possible.

NextJS by default

We support all the default options that NextJS provides by using their next/babel configuration as a Babel preset and by using their build script.

Folder Structure
Getting Started
NextJS by default
Browsers/NodeJS support
CSS
Assets
Environment variables in client side
CDN
Port
Config
Polyfills
Tests
Moment.js locales

Folder Structure

|_ build // Where the generated files will be added
|_ src
| |_ client
| | |_ components
| | |_ pages
| | |_ static
| |_ server
| |_ server.js
| |_ setupTests.js
|_ .babelrc // To inherit the Babel config
|_ .env
|_ .eslintrc.js // To inherit the ESLint config so you can see it in your IDE
|_ .gitignore
|_ package.json

For the project to build, these files must exist with exact filenames:

pages folder with .js files that map to your routes
server.js is the NodeJS server entry point.
.babelrc so when building we use our built-in configuration.

Getting started

After creating your project using Create Next React App, you will have a set of 4 commands:

start

npm start will start your development environment.

build

npm run build will create all the necessary files for your production environments.

By running your build with CI=true, it will make it fail on ESLint warnings.

prod

npm run prod will run your server in a production environment. A build needs to have been generated first.

test

npm test will run your tests in watch mode. To learn more about the test runner, refer to its documentation: jest-run

Browsers/NodeJS support

For browser/node.js compatibility we use babel-preset-env with the following options by default, but you can customize them in your package.json:

{
  "targets": {
    "node": "8.9.4",
    "browsers": ["last 2 versions", "ie 11"]
  }
}

CSS

You can Next's bundled styled-jsx, but you can also import CSS files directly:

// Any page/component/...
import React from 'react';
import './style.css';
 
export default function() {
  return <span className="my-class-name">Some text</span>;
}

For the CSS to be served to your application, you will however have to create a _document.js file in your pages folder:

// src/client/pages/_document.js
import React from 'react';
import Document, { Head, Main, NextScript } from 'next/document';
 
export default class MyDocument extends Document {
  render() {
    return (
      <html>
        <Head>
          <link rel="stylesheet" href="/_next/static/style.css" />
        </Head>
        <body>
          <Main />
          <NextScript />
        </body>
      </html>
    );
  }
}

Assets

Import your assets directly from the static folder:

// Any page/component/...
import React from 'react';
import logo from '../static/logo.png';
 
export default function() {
  return <img src={logo} alt="logo" />;
}

Environment variables in client side

Your project can consume variables declared in your environment as if they were declared locally in your JS files. By default you will have NODE_ENV defined for you, and any other environment variables starting with NEXT_APP_.

// .env
NEXT_APP_TEST=abc

// Any page/component/...
import React from 'react';
 
export default function() {
  return <span>{process.env.NEXT_APP_TEST}</span>;
}

Note: You must create custom environment variables beginning with NEXT_APP_. Any other variables except NODE_ENV will be ignored to avoid accidentally exposing a private key on the machine that could have the same name. Changing any environment variables will require you to restart the development server if it is running.

Leverage assets using CDN

Using a CDN is just an example, it could be that you want to host your JS/CSS/Static files on a different server or just a different domain.

It will work automatically for src/client/static files that you import directly into your code, but you will have to make a small change to your CSS. To make that happen, you need:

To create the PUBLIC_URL variable and use it as such:

// .env
PUBLIC_URL=https://cdn.net/some/path

// src/client/pages/_document.js
 
// Change
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/_next/static/style.css" />
 
// To
<link rel="stylesheet" href={`${process.env.ASSET_PREFIX}/static/style.css`} />

// Any page/component/...
import React from 'react';
import logo from '../static/logo.png';
 
export default function() {
  return <img src={logo} alt="logo" />;
}

Note: CSS and Static files do not work yet. We're waiting on NextJS to publish their next version for that. Once released, it will start working automatically.

After those changes are made, you just need to upload the content of build/public and serve those files from where ever you want.

Customize the port

Customize the port your application will be running on by declaring a PORT variable:

PORT=3001 guestline-scripts start

Use your own config

You can use your own config or extend ours by creating a src/client/next.config.js file. This file should follow the Next.js documentation.

Remember to use your own config in your server.js too.

Use polyfills

In case you want to add your own set of polyfills for the client, just create a polyfills.js file inside the client folder, and add the ones you want to use. create-next-react-app will automatically pick it for you and put it at the beginning of the bundle. You can use directly core-js, as Next already uses it.

Example:

// src/client/polyfills.js
 
import 'core-js/fn/object/assign';
import 'core-js/fn/array/fill';
import 'core-js/fn/array/from';

Tests

By default the test command is using jest-run. Refer to its documentation to see how to work with it.

Moment.js locales

If you use a Moment.js, you might notice that only the English locale is available by default. This is because the locale files are large, and you probably only need a subset of all the locales provided by Moment.js.

To add a specific Moment.js locale to your bundle, you need to import it explicitly.
For example:

import moment from 'moment';
import 'moment/locale/fr';

If import multiple locales this way, you can later switch between them by calling moment.locale() with the locale name:

import moment from 'moment';
import 'moment/locale/fr';
import 'moment/locale/es';
 
// ...
 
moment.locale('fr');

This will only work for locales that have been explicitly imported before.

next-react-app-scripts

Create Next React App

NextJS by default

Table of contents

Folder Structure

Getting started

start

build

prod

test

Browsers/NodeJS support

CSS

Assets

Environment variables in client side

Leverage assets using CDN

Customize the port

Use your own config

Use polyfills

Tests

Moment.js locales

Dependencies (24)

Dev Dependencies (2)

Package Sidebar

Install

Repository

Homepage

Weekly Downloads

Version

License

Unpacked Size

Total Files

Last publish

Collaborators

next-react-app-scripts

Create Next React App

NextJS by default

Table of contents

Folder Structure

Getting started

start

build

prod

test

Browsers/NodeJS support

CSS

Assets

Environment variables in client side

Leverage assets using CDN

Customize the port

Use your own config

Use polyfills

Tests

Moment.js locales

Dependencies (24)

Dev Dependencies (2)

Package Sidebar

Install

Repository

Homepage

DownloadsWeekly Downloads

Version

License

Unpacked Size

Total Files

Last publish

Collaborators

Weekly Downloads