Question

Running static reactjs server from nodejs App Platform

Hi, I have a React application on the App Platform and wish to serve the static build file. Within settings you can set the #### Commands, there’s two at current on the platform. Build Commands and Run Commands.

I’m currently running an ##### Ubuntu 18.04 stack with Node.js [latest].

I want to be able to run the serve build command as suggested in https://create-react-app.dev/docs/deployment/ for deploying a create-react-app. However, I am unsure if I’m able to globally install and run the npm package serve and have it serve the build directory for my app.

At current I just have the run command running npm start which runs the local development create-react-app server.

Any ideas? Thanks


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Bobby Iliev
Site Moderator
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June 15, 2023

Hi there,

Indeed, rather than deploy your React app as a web service to the App Platform and running the development server with npm start, you can deploy your app as a static website.

You can follow this step-by-step tutorial on how to do that here:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-deploy-a-react-application-to-digitalocean-app-platform

Mainly follow step 3, which describes how to configure your component as a static website that will run npm run build and deploy the build assets rather running the development server.

Hope that this helps!

Let me know if you have any questions!

Best,

Bobby

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