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Example monorepo

A monorepo where apps share components might look like this:

monorepo
  |--apps
    |--app1
    |--app2
  |--components
    |--component1
    |--component2
    |--component3

Integrated CRA support

Integrated support for monorepos was available in CRA 2.0 alphas, but was reverted in the final CRA 2.0 release.

Integrated here means CRA would build (and test) other packages/components in the monorepo.

The alternative is for the other packages in the monorepo to have their own build/test/etc, and orchestrate them using monorepo tools like Lerna, and this seems to be what CRA is now suggesting.

CRA 2.0 note suggests using nwb to build components and indicates that CRA will document a monorepo set up.

There's also this example workspace that builds components with babel and shows how to orchestrate with Lerna.

CRA fork with integrated support

I like the workflow that allows shared components to be built and tested with the app itself and without need to orchestrate with Lerna, so I'm maintaining a CRA fork with monorepo support, see user guide for more info.

However, I recommend using the official CRA, following the maintainers' advice, and contributing to help improve the situation.

CRA monorepo support notes

Issues

There are two main issues regarding monorepo support in CRA:

  1. Issue 3031: Can't run create-react-app in workspace
    • This issue is mainly just that monorepo tools (yarn/lerna) can hoist react-scripts to a top-level node_modules which breaks some create-react-app code that expects react-scripts to be in app's node_modules.
    • This is fixed by PR 3435 (rmhartog's fork).
  2. Issue 1333: Support Lerna and/or Yarn Workspaces
    • This is the issue for actually supporting shared source in monorepos.
    • See PR 3741 (merged)

Extended Use Cases

  1. Monorepo with cra-compatible and non-cra-compatible components
  2. Cra-comps w/ source not at root (e.g. nwb components)
  3. Apps that include a cra-comp, but don't want to build it.
  4. Cra-comps from private registry (instead of monorepo)
  5. Discourage/prevent cra-comps from being published (non-standard in ecosystem)
  6. Cra-comps as transitive dependencies (app depends on cra-comp2, cra-comp2 depends on cra-comp1)

Example monorepo

monorepo
  |--packages.json: workspaces: ["apps/*", "comps/*", "cra-comps/*"] <-- (yarn workspace)
  |--lerna.json: packages: ["apps/*", "comps/*", "cra-comps/*"] <-- (lerna w/o yarn workspace)
  |--apps
    |--cra-app1 <-- basic cra-app, doesn't use any monorepo comps
    |--cra-app2 <-- basic cra-app, doesn't use any monorepo comps
    |--cra-app3 <-- uses some monorepo comps
      |--package.json: dependencies: ["comp1": <vsn>, "comp2": <vsn>]
  |--comps
    |--comp1  <-- standard shared comp, ok!
      |--package.json: main: comp1.js
      |--comp1.js
      |--comp1.test.js
    |--comp2  <-- comp with dependency on another cra-comp, ok!
      |--package.json: dependencies: ["comp1"]
      |--index.js: import comp1 from 'comp1'
      |--index.test.js
    |--comp3  <-- comp w/ built output, ok, but will (unnecessarily) transpile
      |--package.json: main: build/index.js
      |--build/index.js  <-- don't transpile?
      |--index.js
      |--index.test.js <-- don't test?
    |--comp4  <-- cra-comp w/ source under /src, not handled (tbd)
      |--package.json: dependencies: ["comp1"]
      |--src
        |--index.js: import comp1 from 'comp1'
        |--index.test.js
    |--comp5  <-- comp with its own build and test, not handled (tbd)
      |--package.json: dependencies: ["comp1"]
      |--index.js: import comp1 from 'comp1'
      |--index.test.js

Some questions about how monorepo functionality should work:

  1. Should tests from cra-comps run when running app tests?
  2. Should files from cra-comps be linted when building app?
  3. Should a directory structure be enforced for cra-comps?
  4. How to flag components that should not be treated as cra-comps? (or should cra-comps be by convention?)

Setup Info

  • this monorepo uses lerna w/ yarn workspaces
  • this repo currently uses an alpha release of react-scripts

Install this example monorepo

  1. git clone https://github.com/bradfordlemley/cra-monorepo-examples
  2. cd cra-monorepo-examples
  3. yarn
  4. cd apps/cra-app3 (or any of the apps) and do anything you'd normally do, e.g. yarn start/build/test.

How to fork create-react-app/react-scripts

Forking react-scripts in a maintainable way is a challenging endeavor because it is part of a monorepo and it has dependencies on other packages in the monorepo. See monorepo structure in CRA contributing guide.

The first steps are easy:

  1. Fork create-react-app
  2. Make changes, usually in packages/react-scripts

Now, how do you use it or test it?....

  • Option 1: Point to your forked react-scripts repo
    • Unfortunately, you can't just point your app's react-scripts dependency to your forked repo because it is not the react-scripts repo, it is the create-react-app repo.
    • React-scripts is inside somewhere, but there's no way to tell npm/yarn where it is.
  • Option 2: Link to local clone
    • You can npm/yarn link to a local clone of your create-react-app/react-scripts:
      1. git clone fork ${cra_fork} <-- local clone of create-react-app fork
      2. cd ${cra_repo}/packages/react-scripts && yarn link <-- register forked react-scripts
      3. cd ${app} && yarn link react-scripts <-- use forked react-scripts
    • But there is a subtle limitation:
      • Your fork must be based on the same version of react-scripts that the app lists in its dependencies.
      • This is because you need to have all of the same react-scripts dependencies' versions installed.
      • Mainly, you run into an issue when your linked react-scripts uses a different jest version than the app's original react-scripts.
  • Option 3: Publish your own version of react-scripts
    • You can publish your own version of react-scripts, preferably scoping it like @myorg/react-scripts.
    • This works well as long as you don't need to change any of the other packages in the create-react-app monorepo -- you just use the packages that are released by the upstream.
  • Option 4: Publish your own version of all create-react-app packages
    • If you want to have a truly independent fork without the caveats of above solutions
    • Publish your own versions of all the packages in create-react-app, preferably scoping all of them like @myorg/pkg.
    • For reference, see this commit with scoping change.
    • For better or for worse, now you're your own maintainer with full control: 😄 or 😧 ?
    • See setting up local copy in CRA contributing for more info on using local cra.
    • Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to point your existing app to use the local fork. For may cases, you can link react-scripts (see option 2 above), but with the same caveats. Or, publish it first.

Tests

Tests to verify monorepo support (Issue 1333)

  1. Test cra-app3 in this monorepo
    1. Install this monorepo as described above
    2. Open terminal at apps/cra-app3
    3. Verify npm start/build/test run correctly

Tests to verify "create-react-app" works (Issue 3031)

  1. "create-react-app" works in workspace
    1. Open terminal at workspace root.
    2. /path/to/forked/packages/create-react-app cra-newapp <-- create app
    3. Update src/App.js and public/index.html to have "New App" in titles
    4. cd cra-newapp
    5. yarn start <-- verify app runs in browser with "New App" titles
    6. yarn build <-- verify build succeeds
    7. yarn test <-- verify test succeeds
  2. "create-react-app" works outside of workspace
    1. Open terminal somewhere outside workspace root.
    2. /path/to/forked/packages/create-react-app newapp <-- create app
    3. Verification similar to above
  3. "npm run create-react-app" works when running from create-react-app dev repo
    1. Open terminal at root of forked create-react-app repo
    2. npm run create-react-app newapp <-- create app
    3. Verification similar to above
  4. "npm run start/build/test" work when running from create-react-app dev repo
    1. Open terminal at root of forked create-react-app repo
    2. npm run start/build/test
    3. Verification similar to above, ensure template files are used