Building React App
You've built your React app, and now it's time to share it with the world. But before deployment, you need to create an optimized production build. The development version is large and slow; the production build minifies code, optimizes images, and prepares everything for hosting.
What is a Production Build?
A production build is an optimized version of your app that is ready to be served to users. It includes:
- Minified and uglified JavaScript (smaller file size).
- Optimized assets (CSS, images).
- Environment variables set to production.
- Removed development warnings and logs.
Think of development mode as a workshop lots of tools and noise. Production mode is the finished product clean, efficient, and ready for customers.
Building with Create React App
If you used Create React App, building is simple:
npm run buildThis creates a `build` folder containing static files: HTML, CSS, JS, and assets. You can serve this folder with any static server.
Testing the Build Locally
Before deploying, test your build locally using a static server:
npx serve buildEnvironment Variables in Build
You can use environment variables in your React app. In production, they are embedded at build time. Create a `.env` file:
REACT_APP_API_URL=https://api.example.comIn your code, access it via `process.env.REACT_APP_API_URL`. During build, it gets replaced with the actual value.
Two Minute Drill
- A production build optimizes your app for deployment smaller, faster, and without development warnings.
- With Create React App, run `npm run build` to generate the `build` folder.
- Test your build locally with `npx serve build`.
- Environment variables prefixed with `REACT_APP_` are embedded at build time.
- The build output is static files HTML, CSS, JS that can be served by any web server.
Need more clarification?
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