Deploy purely static pages to SWA without creating a `public` subfolder

[Will 保哥]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I'm always frustrated when deploying a static files onto SWA using the following command.

swa deploy --app-location . --deployment-token=<deployment-token> --env=production

All I have to do is move all files under current directory into a public sub-folder. Then run the following command.

swa deploy --app-location public --deployment-token=<deployment-token> --env=production

Describe the solution you'd like

I always wanted have a solution that can simply put my static files onto SWA. So I hope this command works.

swa deploy --app-location . --deployment-token=<deployment-token> --env=production

Or, more simple:

swa deploy --deployment-token=<deployment-token> --env=production

Or, even more simple if SWA_CLI_DEPLOYMENT_TOKEN env var has been set:

swa deploy --env=production

Describe alternatives you've considered

N/A

Additional context

I was deploying a Java application to a Web app on the App Service Plan with Linux OS. Due to I want to share the same App Service Plan and deploy a new web app that only have static files. (SPA)

In Web App with a App Service Plan for Linux OS, I'm not able to deploy a new Web App with only have static files. For Web App on Windows, there is no problem at all. For Web App on Linux, there is no way to deploy static files in a Web App that have a runtime stack. I don't want to create another App Service Plan by the way. So that the SWA is probably the only solution. So that I want the SWA CLI can provide a more intuitive and more simply way to deploy simple static pages/files.

I know I have many solutions to deploy static files such as Blob Storage. It because it doesn't support Custom Domain with a TLS certificate. So I don't want this solution either.

Related: #591

[dankarmyy]

I ran into something similar you mention recently. However, the swa deploy command is supposed to work against the output from the swa build command.

The trick with purely static site is to make use of script commands in a package.json to copy your source to a directory that you can pass into the swa deploy command.

You'll need the following files (tweak commands/paths as necessary)

package.json

{
  "scripts": {
    "build": "robocopy src src\\dist /XD *dist* /s /purge > nul & if ErrorLevel 8 (exit /B 1) else (exit /B 0)"
  }
}

The above command will copy all source files from the src directory to src\dist, including sub directories but excluding the dist folder. It will also remove files in the dist that do not exist in the source. The additional command translates the non zero success exit code from robocopy to a zero exit code, otherwise it will fail.

swa-cli.config.json

{
  "$schema": "https://aka.ms/azure/static-web-apps-cli/schema",
  "configurations": {
    "app": {
      "appLocation": "src",
      "outputLocation": "dist",
      "appBuildCommand" : "npm run build"
    }
  }
}

Your project directory structure should look like this:

\
¬\src
¬\src\index.html
¬\src\staticwebapp.config.json
¬\src\any-other-files-or-directories
¬\src\dist
package.json
swa-cli.config.json

Then simply run the following command from your root directory (the one above \src):

swa build && swa deploy [options]

[Will 保哥]

I'm just hoping a better DX for the SWA newbies especially for the pure front-end devs. They might not know anything about Node.js or any backend stuff.