Create React App

In this example we will be deploying a simple "Hello World" example with Create React App.

Getting started with Create React App

• Start a new Create React App project:

npx create-react-app <project name>

Deploy with Now

First we need to create a now.json configuration file to instruct Now how to build the project.

For this example we will be using our newest version Now 2.0.

By adding the version key to the now.json file, we can specify which Now Platform version to use.

We also need to define each builders we would like to use. Builders are modules that take a deployment's source and return an output, consisting of either static files or dynamic Lambdas.

Then we need to add a now.json file to specify we want to use our Platform V2.

In this case we are going to use @now/static-build to build and deploy our React application selecting the package.json as our entry point. We will also define a name for our project (optional).

{
    "version": 2,
    "name": "my-react-app",
    "builds": [
        { "src": "package.json", "use": "@now/static-build", "config": { "distDir": "build" } }
    ],
    "routes": [
      { "src": "/static/(.*)", "headers": { "cache-control": "s-maxage=31536000,immutable" }, "dest": "/static/$1" },
      { "src": "/favicon.ico", "dest": "/favicon.ico" },
      { "src": "/asset-manifest.json", "dest": "/asset-manifest.json" },
      { "src": "/manifest.json", "dest": "/manifest.json" },
      { "src": "/precache-manifest.(.*)", "dest": "/precache-manifest.$1" },
      { "src": "/service-worker.js", "headers": { "cache-control": "s-maxage=0" }, "dest": "/service-worker.js" },
      { "src": "/(.*)", "headers": {"cache-control": "s-maxage=0"}, "dest": "/index.html" }
    ]
}

Visit our documentation for more information on the now.json configuration file.

We also need to include a script in package.json named "now-build" that specifies what command Now will run on the server to "build" your application. By default, Create React App will output the build to the build directory, which is configured in the above now.json file.

{
    "scripts": {
        ...
        "now-build": "react-scripts build"
    }
}

We are now ready to deploy the app.

now

For more information on deploying a CRA generated React project on Now, read our Guide.