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JavaScriptErika
JavaScriptErika

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Deploy a React App as a Github User Page with Yarn

tldr; see Solution

I've been working on redoing my portfolio site, it's still a WIP - that being said here it is so far. I need to polish my portfolio section functionality in mobile view and some other tasks, and I need to refactor the code yet. I'd say it's about 90% done.

It needed a huge change from what it originally was to better reflect my skills since last year. I'm thinking a new redesign every year or so is a good time to keep reiterating and updating a portfolio. I went from using Foundation and jQuery to React, Flexbox, and p5js!

Speaking of React, before I began my portfolio, I wanted to make sure I could easily publish my project as a Github User Page! You know the one's where you can access a site as: https://yourUserName.github.io/ as opposed to a Project Page: https://yourUserName.github.io/yourProjectRepo. I always get the naming of those confused and forget them. Thankfully you can deploy as a user page or project page with the gh-pages package!

I got to the point of needing to test my site on mobile and had to do some digging around to find out how to deploy a create-react-app project as a User Page. If you're looking to deploy a Project Page with via create-react-app, check this documentation out here - there are a few subtle differences between deploying as a user page and project page that aren't completely covered for a project page.

I made the mistake of going through the above steps, not realizing there would be differences. I deployed my project!! My project was not showing up on https://javascripterika.github.io/, and my master branch had all of the build code. I wanted to push changes to my master branch, but of course, I'm not going to pull in the build code with 5k changes, and I can't push changes without pulling. Whoa, and now I have a random gh-pages branch? And my master is just showing up as all HTML (that big long red bar). WTF! Noooooo! Where is my JavaScripts??! 😭

react-master

The Solution

This tutorial assumes you have a working project and created your repo as username/username.github.io, are using create-react-app, and yarn

While in the current directory of your project:

$ yarn add gh-pages

In your package.json file, add

"homepage": "https://yourUserName.github.io/",
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  • I added this right above "dependencies"

Still in your package.json file, add the following INSIDE of "scripts":

"predeploy": "yarn run build",
"deploy": "gh-pages -b master -d build",
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Next, let's create a new branch...since master will contain our build files pretty soon and minifiy, bundle and get weird, we need a new branch that will serve as our source code - so we can make changes and we don't lose our beautiful human-able readable code.

While in the master branch, let's create our source branch... you can name it whatever you want.

$ git checkout -b source
$ git push origin source

Yay! Our source branch is a direct copy of our master. Now, on Github we need to update our Default branch, master, to our source branch...and that's also why we pushed it (so Github knows it exists).

Navigate to your repo on Github, and select "Settings".
On the left-side panel, click on "Branches".
Next, you're able to select your source branch and update it under the Default branch heading.

setdefaultbranch

Now while you're in your source branch via your terminal, run:

$ yarn deploy

AND! That's it! Your master branch will contain the build code. Give it a couple of minutes and visit your site at https://yourUserName.github.io/

Making Changes

Let's say you want to make changes, your source branch acts like your master. So branch away using source, and merge your branches into source as needed. Other than what's mentioned below, you don't need to do anything else with master now.

Let's say I make some "testing" changes in source. I push it as usual to github:

$ git push origin source

Switch to master in the terminal, git merge source or whatever branch you want, switch to your source branch and and run:

$ yarn deploy

There you go! Those changes are published and deployed.

A Quick SideNote

I ended up deleting my gh-pages branch and retried the deploy, and it works just fine! I no longer have the big red bar of HTML as my Default branch is source and my changes work! All is good with the world now!

If a gh-pages branch is created via Github after you deploy, go ahead and delete it! According to Github, "User pages must be built from the master branch." If you navigate to your repo under Settings, and scroll down to the "Github Pages" section, you will see a grayed out option there under Source!


Update and Edit 5/30

I was working on my project and realized a MAJOR issue! More than likely MOST of us will use the user page as a portfolio page and link to our project pages via Github.

If you are using React Router, the Service Worker will cache your project pages & they won't direct correctly (all of my project pages appeared as a blank page a part of my portfolio only with its menu)...this will happen whether or not you click on the links to your project pages in your app or copy and paste it in your browser. Even if you do not use a project page in your user page, it will still be affected!

To fix this, you have to delete the service worker file and any references to it in your index.js file... & remember to clear your browser cache (a hard refresh doesn't suffice).

Top comments (32)

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pbkarlsson profile image
Philip Karlsson

Great!

Yesterday I got the idea that I'd replace my old Jekyll based personal GH-page with React site built with GatsbyJS. Unfortunately I forgot the whole point with version control and deleted the old site's repository before building the new one. I ended up not liking Gatsby, so currently I have no site. So, yeah, this is couldn't have come at a better time.

Thanks!

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javascripterika profile image
JavaScriptErika

Awesome!!!

Haha, I did the same thing with my previous user page; I deleted my repo, and started fresh (with my current project) as I had to do something super wonky with the build files with my previous setup (I really had no idea what I was doing at the time)!

I definitely feel confident with this method now, especially for any needed updates or complete redesigns in the future.

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goughjo02 profile image
goughjo02 • Edited

Great article.

When using react-router, have you tried adding a redirect, from '/repository-name' to '/home' to solve the final issue?

Edit

I have tried this and it works. add <Route exact path="/your-github-repo" render={() => <Redirect to="/" />} /> to your routes

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coffeegerm profile image
David Yarzebinski

Would this work just as well with Vue? or just React?

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javascripterika profile image
JavaScriptErika

I did some digging around, here's what I found for vue:

vue-gh-pages
npmjs.com/package/vue-gh-pages

and

vuepress.vuejs.org/guide/deploy.ht...

^ This method appears to be the most straightforward for vue, as you don't need to add any dependencies. I'd still recommend creating a source branch as you'd be pushing your build files directly to master.

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rik96 profile image
rik-96

This was really helpful.! I've been trying to add a custom domain name to my repo. This article saved at least me a couple of hours. However, I don't understand why we need to be in source to run build?

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moussaabmoulim profile image
moussaab moulim

i have the same question

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cclin profile image
Catherine Lin

Hi, thanks for writing this tutorial!

I followed the instructions but I'm still getting an error after running deploy from the source branch.

'fatal: A branch named 'master' already exists.'

Do you have any idea why?

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cclin profile image
Catherine Lin

Never mind , I managed to get it work. Thanks again for the instructions! :)

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hrkucuk profile image
Hakki Riza Kucuk • Edited

I am having the exact same problem right now but I could not get it work. Could you please share how did you solve it?

EDIT: for anybody who would face the same problem: refer here
github.com/tschaub/gh-pages#when-g...

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hrkucuk profile image
Hakki Riza Kucuk

I could not solve this problem so I came up with another solution: -check out a new branch called "source" which is an exact copy of "master".
-deploy the site to branch "gh-pages" with usual gh-pages npm module. (I use npm in my example, but the script is same.)

  • rebase "master" to "gh-pages" and simply push it. So "master" will have what "gh-pages" will have.

It is a not a clean solution though. Any feedback is much appreciated.

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danieljamesross profile image
danieljamesross

I followed your excellent tutorial and successfully published my react app back in May 2020.

I recently updated the app and hit 'yarn deploy', but the site would only show the README.

After unsuccessful attempts to fix, I eventually asked GitHub. They replied within 30 mins (excellent!) with the following fix which I thought I'd share.

Thanks for the tutorial, fix below.

"We recently rolled out a change that allows you to select any branch to publish Pages from. Unfortunately, we have identified a bug with this change that affects user site repositories whose default branch was not master. In cases like this, the publishing source for Pages gets set as the default branch instead of master, which is what has happened to you.

You will need to set the publishing source back to the master branch by following the steps here

Once you do that, it shouldn't change again."

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arodriguezhacks profile image
Angie Rodriguez

Useful article for the most part; however, I don't understand this step:

"Switch to master in the terminal, git merge source or whatever branch you want, switch to your source branch and and run:

$ yarn deploy"

If this step instructs you to merge the source branch into the master branch, then the master branch is ahead by 1 commit of 'origin/master':
"$ git checkout master
Switched to branch 'master'
Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 1 commit.
(use "git push" to publish your local commits)"

So I tried pushing the master branch with 'git push origin master', but I receive an error which says I would have to first do a git pull, yet I know from trial and error that'll be a bad move, pulling down 5k items hence the reason why I searched the internet and finally found this helpful article.

I'm just concerned about why my master branch is not on par with the origin/master branch on Github, but maybe it's not so big a deal ?

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youngkidwarrior profile image
VictorGinelli

same

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itscosmas profile image
Cosmas Gikunju • Edited

Hey thanks. This saved me pulling my hair and digging over google only to find solution for project sites.

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shavrin profile image
Kacper Olek

Struggled with that a lot, now it works!
Thank you!

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cat profile image
Cat

I absolutely needed this. I learned (the hard way) that directly connecting the app to GitHub was a mistake. Thank you for this!

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javascripterika profile image
JavaScriptErika

You're welcome - thank you for your feedback!!! I got hung up on it after working on my portfolio and wanting to test it out - it was frustrating because it didn't feel like there was cohesive documentation out there and I wanted to fix that problem! :)