Spring-Boot-Create-React-App starter-kit

Last week I wrote a small post on how we where working on setting up a new front-end setup based on Create-React-App at work, New front-end setup based on Create-React-App.

We actually finished our new setup this Thursday, and by end-of-day Friday we had already migrated two of our existing services over onto the new setup. Been super impressed and surprised at how easy this whole process was. I think it speaks too how good Create-React-App is and how they seem to have struck a nice balance on what features are included and how they are setup.

So now we have a nice front-end setup with all the features that I talked about wanting in my last post.

• Based on Create-React-App, and without using the eject feature. Allowing us to keep our project basically configuration free and able to update to new versions.
• Jest is now our test runner, and with only minor tweaks to our existing tests we got everything we already had running. In addition to that we have started to add some nice little tests using the snapshot feature in Jest.
• Flow has been added and theres a small guide on how to use it in our template projects README.
• We added scss support through a suggestion I saw Dan Abramov tweet out and its working pretty well for us.
• Proxy and JSON-Server is setup to give us a super simple back-end when working on front-end development.

This all works really well, and we are basically ready to start using it as our main template for creating new services. The last remaining item on our list now is basically to hold a presentation for our other developers.

We are going on a team-building event for a few days next week, so me and my colleague will hold a presentation there. Showing how the new setup works in general and all its features, how to create a new service based on our update template / starter-kit and also how to migrate an existing service if they want to do that.

Spring-Boot-Create-React-App starter-kit

Inspired by how easy it was to get all of this good stuff setup and working for us at work. I decided that I wanted to create a similar but more generic starter-kit for whats become my “daily-driver” tech-stack, Spring-Boot and React.

I have been using Spring-Boot for the past six months at work, and also on the side with my consulting business when theres been a need for some small additional services or custom integration points. Really enjoy working with Spring-Boot, and its already super simple to get started with a back-end using Spring-Initializr.

But often theres a need for an additional UI layer on top of the back-end, either to actually deliver a front-end solution or just to make it easier to work with the back-end itself.

So I figured that creating a nice little starter-kit that gives you a back-end for front-end service already setup and good to go would be a nice little project.

Me and a friend of mine already have an on-going side-project thats going to require something similar to this very soon!

So without further ado, here it is: Spring-Boot-Create-React-App

I have started to describe how to use the starter-kit in the README file, but it`s not completely done yet. So if you wanna try using it and have questions just ask!

Would LOVE feedback on the project!

Written by Thomas Bembridge Software Developer working at SpareBank 1 in Norway. Opinions and ideas shared through this blog are my own. Follow me on Twitter!