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React For GitHub Pages

Tecnate | Last Updated: 2024-06-21


About

This is a quick guide to get React apps created with the Create React App up and running on GitHub pages. If you need a Git refresher, refer to my Git Cheatsheet.

At this time, you can only run static applications using GitHub pages; it's not meant to get complex, dynamic react apps online.

I found Deploying a React App to GitHub Pages to be a great help. Please refer to it for more detailed explanations.


General Workflow

This is an overview. Refer to the Deployment Process section for step-by-step instructions.

The development-deployment workflow for running a React app on GitHub pages generally looks like this:

Initial Deployment

  1. Develop and test changes on a local development or feature branch.
  2. Merge changes into your main branch.
  3. Execute npm run deploy from your main branch to publish your app to GitHub Pages.

Continual Development & Deployment

Decide which you'd rather do for further development:

  • Either commit changes made during deployment to main, push source code to make it available on GitHub, pull in changes to development, and repeat workflow cycle.
  • Or ignore deployment changes, keep the source code private, and repeat workflow cycle.
    • For this option, the easiest way to keep your source code from being published is to add /build to your .gitignore file (explained in more detail below).

Deployment Process

  1. Follow the normal process to connect your local repo to GitHub.

  2. Checkout a development branch

    • ❌ Working directly on main is not recommended.

  3. Install gh-pages as a dependency:

    npm install gh-pages --save-dev

  4. Add a homepage property to the top of your package.json file in the following format:

    • Project site (typical): https://{username}.github.io/{repo-name}
    • User site (less typical): https://{username}.github.io
    // package.json file example
{
    "name": "my-app",
    "version": "0.1.0",
    "homepage": "https://nvsmith.github.io/landing-page",
    "private": true,
    ...
}

  5. Add these predeploy and deploy properties to the scripts object to your package.json file:

    // Only add predeploy & deploy properties, leave everything else alone
 "scripts": {
    "predeploy": "npm run build",
    "deploy": "gh-pages -d build",
    "start": "react-scripts start",
    "build": "react-scripts build",
    ...
 }

  6. Make sure your local app still works as expected, then add and commit your changes.

  7. Checkout main, and merge in your development branch.

  8. Push main to remote to make sure everything is synced before deployment.

  9. Create a new branch exactly named gh-pages and push it upstream to GitHub before deployment:

        # Create new branch for GitHub pages
    git checkout -b gh-pages

    # Set upstream for deployment
    git push -u origin gh-pages
    • ⚠️ Some online documents say that running npm deploy will automatically create the gh-pages branch, but it's never worked for me. So you can just do it manually before running deployment if you experience the same issues.

  10. Checkout your main branch again and deploy your app to GitHub pages:

    # Checkout main
git checkout main

# Deploy app to static website with a comment
npm run deploy -- -m "Deploy React app to GitHub Pages"

    Here's what happens:

    • The predeploy script you added creates a distributable React app in a folder name build, which contains a folder named static.
    • The deploy script you added pushes the static folder to your remote gh-pages branch along with the commit SHA and comment; this does not push to your main branch.

    npm run deploy: This command is not a standard built-in script in React projects but is often used to automate the deployment process to hosting services (like GitHub Pages). It includes the standard npm run build command (to prepare app for production) and then deploy the contents of the build directory to the hosting service.

  11. In your browser, navigate to your GitHub repo > Settings (upper right on desktop) > Pages (under Code and Automation). Set the configuration like so if it isn't already:

    • Branch: gh-pages
    • Folder: / (root)

  12. It may take a few minutes for your app to be viewable at you GitHub Pages URL.

  13. Deployment accomplished!


Continuing Development

Whether you decide to commit the changes made during deployment will depend on whether or you want the source code to be made available or not.

You do not have to commit/sync changes to your gh-pages branches once your start deploying. In fact, you can delete the local gh-pages branch if you want to, since the remote branch will always be built directly from a deployment on main.

Option 1: Publish Source Code

  1. Back in terminal, commit the deployment build changes to main and push to remote:

    # Check you're on main & only have build changes
git status

# Add files and commit changes
git add . && git commit -m "Add distributable source code to repo"

# Push to GitHub
git push

  2. At this point, your main branch will be ahead of your development branch. For further development work, decide if you want to:

    • Pull changes in from your newly-updated remote main branch.
      • ❌ It is not recommended to merge main into development directly; keep main as the single source of truth and pull from it whenever possible.
    # Checkout your development branch (or create a new one)
git checkout development

# Fetch & merge changes from remote main into local development
git pull origin main
    • Or checkout an entirely new branch for future development.
    • Or rebase

  3. And repeat the develpment-deployment cycle:

    • Develop, test, and commit code on development.
    • Merge code into main.
    • Deploy.
    • Commit and push changes made by deployment.
    • Pull everything onto an existing or new development branch.

Option 2: Keep Source Code Private

You can manually discard changes, as demonstrated below, or you can simply add /build to your .gitignore file.

  1. Back in terminal, ignore any changes made during deployment.

    # Check you're on main & only have build changes
git status

# Discard all changes and revert to prior commit state
git checkout .

# Remove untracked files and directories
git clean -df

# Move back to a development or feature branch to continue working
git checkout development

  2. And repeat the cycle of development:

    • Develop, test, and commit code on development.
    • Merge code into main.
    • Push main to remote, then deploy to GitHub Pages with npm run deploy.
    • Don't commit any changes made by deployment:
      • Discard with git checkout .
      • Remove untracked files with git clean -df
    • Checkout development and continue working.