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Akshay Kurhekar
Akshay Kurhekar

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How to deploy React App on GitHub for free

To deploy React App we need to follow five simple steps

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Step 1

Let's create react app as name of my app is react_app.

$ npx create-react-app react_app
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Step 2

Install the gh-pages package as a "dev-dependency" of the app.

$ npm install gh-pages --save-dev

           OR

$ yarn add gh-pages 
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Step 3

Create new repository on GitHub as Public.

The commands shown in the following steps can all be issued from within the app's folder. Add some properties to the app's package.json file.

At the top level, add a homepage property. Define its value to be the string http://{username}.github.io/{repo-name}, where username is your GitHub username, and repo-name is the name of the GitHub repository.

Since my GitHub username is git_user_name and the name of my GitHub repository is react_app, I added the following property:

//...
"name": "Project Name",
"homepage": "http://git_user_name.github.io/react_app",
"version": "0.1.0...",

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In the existing scripts property, add a predeploy property and a deploy property, each having the values shown below:

"scripts": {
   //...
   "predeploy": "npm run build",
   "deploy": "gh-pages -d build"
  }

          OR

"scripts": {
   //...
   "predeploy": "yarn build",
   "deploy": "gh-pages -d build"
  }
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Step 4

Create a git repository in the app's folder.

$ git init
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Initialized and Add the GitHub repository as a "remote" in your local git repository.

$ git remote add origin https://github.com/git_user_name/react-app.git
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This will make it so the gh-pages package knows where you want it to deploy your app.

Step 5

It will also make it so git knows where you want it to push your source code (i.e. the commits on your master branch).

Generate a production build of your app, and deploy it to GitHub Pages.

$ npm run deploy
    OR
$ yarn deploy    
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That's it! Your app is now accessible at the URL you specified in step 4. In my case, my app is now accessible at: https://git_user_name.github.io/react-app/

I recommend exploring the GitHub repository at this point. When I explored it, I noticed that, although a master branch did not exist, a gh-pages branch did exist. I noticed the latter contained the built app code, as opposed to the app's source code. Optionally, commit your source code to the "master" branch and push your commit to GitHub.

$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Create a React app and publish it to GitHub Pages"
$ git push origin master

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I recommend exploring the GitHub repository once again at this point. When I did that, I noticed that a master branch now existed, and it contained the app's source code. So, the master branch held the source code, and the gh-pages branch held the built app code.

Now it's time to check hosted app.

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You can see now in the Environments section github-pages is active.
after clicking it will redirect to this.

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Now, Click on view Deployment Button to check hosted app.

πŸ₯³ Happy hosting 😍 !

Top comments (2)

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Akshay Kurhekar • Edited

If you find this post helpfull, pls share your feedback.

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Akshay Kurhekar

simple blog to deploy react app on git hub