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https://github.com/NimaBoscarino/react-rails-boilerplate

A React + Rails boilerplate to help you get the best of both worlds ⚛︎ ❤️ 💎
https://github.com/NimaBoscarino/react-rails-boilerplate

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A React + Rails boilerplate to help you get the best of both worlds ⚛︎ ❤️ 💎

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# Last update



This project was last updated on _09-11-2023_.



# React + Rails No-Fluff Boilerplate



A boilerplate project for anyone interested in making a project that uses React and Rails.



Note! This boilerplate has _no fluff_! That means that there's nothing set up for you to do authentication stuff, there's no Redux stuff, and there's no React Router stuff.



The main important bit is that the React project has `proxy` set to `localhost:3001` in the `package.json` file. Take a look!



## Hall of Fame



Here are some projects that have been built using this boilerplate.



- [latercart](https://github.com/bonitac/latercart)

- [Cards-Against-the-Internet](https://github.com/csx773/Cards-Against-the-Internet)

- [Jetify](https://github.com/shadeying/Jetify)

- [watchpoll](https://github.com/grey275/watchpoll)

- [StartDuck](https://github.com/JerChuang/StartDuck)

- [Change-App](https://github.com/ZHShang/Change-App)



## Using the boilerplate



First, fork this boilerplate so you get your own copy of it. Once you have done that, you can clone your new repo to your machine, and get started.



You need **TWO** terminals for this.



In one terminal, run `bundle` to install the dependencies. Run `bin/rake db:setup` to create the databases (called rails_project_development by default). Run `bin/rails s` to run the server.



In the other terminal, `cd` into `client`. Run `npm install`. Rename the `.env.example` file to be called `.env`. Then run `npm start` and go to `localhost:3000` in your browser.



In the browser, you can click on the button and see the data get loaded.



If this doesn't work, please message me!



## Next steps



From here, you can start working on your project!



On the Rails side, you may make new `resources` routes in your `routes.rb` file, e.g. :



```rb

namespace :api do

  resources :dogs # to generate GET /api/dogs, POST /api/dogs, etc...

end

```



Then you can make your various controllers, models, migrations, etc. as you need! The one funky thing is that instead of rendering an HTML view you'll be rendering JSON. [You can return anything from a Rails controller as JSON like this.](https://guides.rubyonrails.org/v5.2/layouts_and_rendering.html#rendering-json) See the example in my "tests_controller".



On the React side, the important bit is that you make you make your AJAXy HTTP requests using something like `axios` or `superagent`. I've set this up to use `axios` already. Check the React code to see an example request being made on-click to the Rails server! You can make your HTTP requests to `/api/anything/you/want`, as long as the route exists on your Rails app.



**NOTE:** I recommend that you namespace all your routes under `api` on the Rails side! Look at how I've done that in the `routes.rb` file, and also how the `tests_controller` is written as:



```rb

class Api::TestsController < ApplicationController

```



and it lives in the `api` folder! Put all your controllers in there!



## Deployment to Heroku



This boilerplate is _almost_ all set up to deal with deploying to Heroku. If you have the Heroku CLI tools installed you can run `heroku create` to create the Heroku project.



Then we must run two commands to tell Heroku to first build our React app, and _then_ build the Rails app.



1. `heroku buildpacks:add heroku/nodejs --index 1`

2. `heroku buildpacks:add heroku/ruby --index 2`



Once you've done that, you can run `git push heroku master` to deploy your project any time you want! Note, however, that deploying to Heroku can be a _little_ slow since Heroku needs to build your React app. Just give it some time.



Once it's deployed, you can run the following commands to manage your app:



- `heroku run rake db:schema:load` to set up your database the first time

- `heroku run rake db:migrate` for any additional migrations

- `heroku run rake db:seed` for seeds

- `heroku run rake db:rollback` to rollback a migration



There are other commands, but these are good to get you started!



To make your app work properly with React Router (if you end up using it) on Heroku, I've added a special route to the `routes.rb` file (`get '*path' ... `).



## Contact



Please contact me at `[email protected]` if you have any questions or requests, or post an issue to this repo.