Apollo Universal Starter Kit is a SEO friendly boilerplate for Universal web app development built on top of Apollo, GraphQL, React, React Native, Expo, Redux, Express with SQL storage support and Twitter Bootstrap integration. Hot Code Reload of back end & front end using Webpack and Hot Module Replacement to reflect your changes instantly and help you stay productive.
- Clone starter kit locally.
git clone https://github.com/sysgears/apollo-universal-starter-kit.git
cd apollo-universal-starter-kit
- Install dependencies.
yarn
- Seed sample database data.
yarn seed
- Run starter kit in development mode.
yarn watch
- Point your browser to http://localhost:3000
- Change any app code and see the changes applied immediately!
- Open app in multiple tabs, try to increase counter or add a new post/comment in one tab and then switch to another tab. You will see that counter value and post/comment are updated there as well, because the application is live updated via subscriptions.
This starter kit adds full React Native integration, with Webpack as a packager and Expo. No native code compilation tools are needed in order to develop native mobile applications with this kit. You are able to run both web and mobile versions of your app at the same time connected to the same backend.
For running Android or iOS you need to set in app.json
ios
or android
field true
. Currently we do not support
running both at the same time, since Expo does not support this.
You need to install Expo app on your Android or iOS device and then you can scan the QR shown in the terminal, to start the app on your device.
You can use Genymotion. After downloading and installing you might need to install VirtualBox unless you already have it. Create a new emulator and start it. After starting the server Expo app should start on it's own. To bring up the developer menu press ⌘+M.
You need to install Xcode. Then install Command Line Tools by running xcode-select --install
.
Next, open up Xcode, go to preferences and click the Components tab, install a simulator from the list.
After the installation if you run the server, simulator should start on it's own and open the app in Expo.
To bring up the developer menu press ⌘+D.
This starter kit is designed so you can use it for just web, mobile or projects using both together.
In case you do not want to use mobile, just set both ios
or android
settings in app.json
to false
.
We have integrated React Native Web, so writing universal
components that can run both on web and mobile platforms
is possible. In this case you can write your components with React Native's building blocks that are supported in
React Native Web and run them both on web and mobile.
To cover more differences you can use platform-specific files.
my_component.web.jsx
my_component.android.jsx
my_component.ios.jsx
In case you only want to use it for web
and do not intend to later add mobile
version, you can omit .web.jsx
extension
and just use my_component.jsx
. Same applies if you just wish to use it for mobile
.
Currently counter
example is implemented to support web and mobile version. If you want to try running counter_show.jsx
as universal
component, just delete or rename counter_show.web.jsx
and you can see how the same component can be used
for both web and mobile.
Currently we do not yet support persisted queries. This can be used in this starter kit currently only for web, but it is planed in the future.
This starter kit encourages modular design of application features. Each feature should be designed as a decoupled module, deleting feature should ideally not break the remaining application. Basic feature module scaffolding is provided with the following command:
yarn cli addmodule <module-name>
This will create all the necessary files to start developing on a new feature module. It creates client
and server
module.
If you would like to only add one or the other, add a second parameter like:
yarn cli addmodule <module-name> [client|server]
If you wish to remove an existing module, do so with:
yarn cli deletemodule <module-name>
Again you can specify client
or server
as a second parameter, if you only wish to delete one or the other.
This way you can easily delete existing examples, like counter
add post
. Do keep in mind that you need at least one
module linked on the server side. So deleting both, before creating any new ones first, will result in
TypeError: Cannot read property 'schema' of undefined
on the server side.
Run the following command to see the CLI help:
yarn cli
-
Webpack for back end
This starter kit is different from most of the starter kits out there, because it uses Webpack not only for front end, but for back-end code as well. This enables powerful Webpack features for back-end code, such as conditional compilation, embedding non-js files and CSS stylesheets into the code, hot code reload, etc. To use external backend set
serverConfig.url
attools/webpack.app_config.js
-
Webpack and Expo for mobile front-end
For the best code sharing support between back-end, web front-end and mobile front-end the Webpack is used to build React Native JavaScript bundles with the help of using Haul project parts. Resulting React Native JavaScript bundles use Expo, so no native code compilation tools are needed in order to develop native mobile applications with this kit.
-
Hot Code Reload for back end and front end
Hot Code Reload for back end is done using Webpack. When Webpack prepares hot patches on the filesystem, SIGUSR2 signal is sent to Node.js app and embedded Webpack Hot Module Runtime reacts to this signal and applies patches to running modules from filesystem. Hot code reload for front end is using Webpack Dev Server and Hot Module Replacement to apply patches to front-end code. Hot patches for React components are applied on the front end and back end at the same time, so React should not complain about differences in client and server code.
-
Webpack DLL vendor bundle generation and updating out of the box
For all the non-development dependencies of project
package.json
the Webpack vendor DLL bundle is generated and updated automatically, so that Webpack didn't process vendor libraries on each change to the project, but only when they are actually changed. This boosts speed of cold project start in development mode and speed of hot code reload even if the number of dependencies is huge. -
Server Side Rendering with Apollo Redux Store sync
On the initial web page request back end fully renders UI and hands off Apollo Redux Store state to front end. Frontend then starts off from there and updates itself on user interactions.
If you don't need Server Side Rendering, set
app.json
ssr
field tofalse
-
Optimistic UI updates
This example application uses Apollo optimistic UI updates, that result in immediate UI update on user interaction and then, after data arrives from the server, UI state is finalized.
-
GraphQL API
GraphQL is used as very flexible and much faster API in terms of bandwidth and round-trips, compared to REST. GraphQL requests are batched together automatically by Apollo
-
GraphQL subscription example
GraphQL subscription is utilized to make counter updating in real-time.
-
SQL and arbitrary data sources support
Knex code to access SQLite is included as an example of using arbitrary data source with Apollo and GraphQL. NoSQL storage or any other data source can be used the same way.
Debug SQL Prints out execuded queries, with respective times in development mode and can be set in
app.json
bydebugSQL
fieldtrue
-
Powerful stylesheets with Hot Reloading
Twitter Bootstrap in form of SASS stylesheets is used for styling demo application. Application has stylesheet in
styles.scss
for global styling which is Hot Reloaded on change. React components styling is done by Glamor v3. -
Babel for ES2017 transpiling
-
ESLint to enforce proper code style
-
React Hot Loader v3 for the sake of completeness this project also supports
React Hot Loader v3
, but it is turned off. By default this starter kit uses pureWebpack HMR
for all hot reloading purposes and we think it covers all practical needs during development and usingReact Hot Loader v3
in addition toWebpack HMR
makes hot reloading less predictable and buggy. To turnReact Hot Loader v3
on: setreactHotLoader
field ofapp.json
totrue
. -
PersistGraphQL Webpack Plugin is a tool to gather static GraphQL queries for GraphQL projects and inject them into build. It will make front end and back end aware of static queries used in the project and will only allow these queries for better security and less bandwidth.
-
Dataloader for loading comments in post example
-
GraphQL Cursor Pagination Example of Relay-style cursor pagination
-
Declarative/dynamic
head
section, using React Helmet -
Google Analytics integration using React GA
-
Full CRUD funcionality with Subscriptions in post example, with ReduxForm
The project structure presented in this boilerplate is fractal, where functionality is grouped primarily by feature rather than file type. This structure is only meant to serve as a guide, it is by no means prescriptive. That said, it aims to represent generally accepted guidelines and patterns for building scalable applications.
.
├── src # Application source code
│ ├── client # Front-end source code
│ │ ├── app # Common front-end application code
│ │ └── modules # Front-end feature-modules, each module has:
│ │ │ # (components, containers, GraphQL queries, redux reducers)
│ │ └── styles # Application-wide styles
│ │ └── test-helpers # Test helper for front-end integration tests
│ │ └── index.jsx # Entry point to web front-end wtih hot code reload
│ ├── common # Common code, redux store and logging
│ ├── mobile # Mobile front-end source code
│ │ ├── index.js # Entry point to mobile front-end wtih live code reload
│ └── server # Back-end server source code
│ │ ├── api # GraphQL API implementation
│ │ └── database # Database migrations and seeds
│ │ │ └── migrations # Database migration scripts using Knex
│ │ │ └── seeds # Database seed scripts using Knex
│ │ └── middleware # Graphiql, GraphQL express and SSR rendering
│ │ └── modules # Back-end server feature-modules, each module has:
│ │ │ # (schema definition, resolvers, sql queries)
│ │ └── sql # Knex connector
│ │ └── test-helpers # Test helper for back-end integration tests
│ │ └── api_server.js # GraphQL api server set up
│ │ └── index.js # Entry point to back-end wtih hot code reload
└── tools # All build related files (Webpack)
While developing, you will probably rely mostly on yarn watch
; however, there are additional scripts at your disposal:
npm run or yarn <script> |
Description |
---|---|
watch |
Run your app in develooment mode and watch your changes. Hot code reload will be enabled in development. |
start |
Run your app in production mode. |
build |
Compiles the application to the build folder. |
tests |
Runs unit tests with Mocha. |
tests:watch |
Runs unit tests with Mocha and watches for changes automatically to re-run tests. |
test |
Runs unit tests with Mocha and check for lint errors |
lint |
Check for lint errors and runs for all .js and .jsx files. |
seed |
Seed sample database using SQLite. Use --prod flag to run in "production" mode. |
migrate |
Migrate the sample database |
rollback |
Rollback the sample database to previous state. |
cli |
CLI tool, currently used for modules scaffolding only. |
- Clone starter kit locally.
git clone https://github.com/sysgears/apollo-universal-starter-kit.git
cd apollo-universal-starter-kit
- Install dependencies.
yarn
- Seed production database data.
NODE_ENV=production yarn seed
- Compile project.
yarn build
- Run project in production mode.
yarn start
Deploying to Heroku
- Add your app to Heroku
- Allow Heroku to install build time dependencies from the devDependencies in
package.json
:Settings -> Config Variables -> Add
, KEY:NPM_CONFIG_PRODUCTION
, VALUE:false
. - Deploy your app on Heroku
You can see latest version of this app deployed to Heroku here: https://apollo-universal-starter-kit.herokuapp.com
Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):
Victor Vlasenko 💻 🔧 📖 |
mitjade 💻 🔧 📖 |
Ujjwal 💻 🔧 📖 |
Dmitry Pavlenko 💻 🔧 |
Joe 💻 🔧 📖 💬 |
Gilad Shoham 💻 🔧 💬 |
Alexander Vetrov 💻 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nikita Pavlov 💻 |
Yishai Chernovitzky 💻 🔧 |
This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!
Copyright © 2016, 2017 SysGears INC. This source code is licensed under the MIT license.