Decide on the Technical Stack and folder structure (React, Redux, Next, Gatsby, Node.js, MongoDB, GraphQL etc...)
Decide on the CSS Layout Structure for the front end (CSS Grid , Flexbox, CSS framework (Bootstrap, Bulma, Tailwind etc...))

Use the Peacock Visual Studio Code extension to set the colour theme for the project. (Optional)

CSS: styled components or Sass/Stylus/CSS

Linting: ESLint

TDD/BDD: Jest and React Testing Library (Front-End) Mocha and Chai (Back-End)

Code Formatting: Prettier

TypeScript (Optional if you want to have better error checking for your code)

Linting: ESLint

Type Checking: TypeScript

Step 3: CI/CD

Gitflow Workflow | Atlassian Git Tutorial

Use Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment

CI/CD: GIT, GitLab, BitBucket, CircleCI, Travis CI, Jenkins, Heroku, Netlify, Now, Docker

Top comments (16)

ucheuzor • Jul 14 '20

Also learning the MERN Stack. Am actually focusing on Frontend. I was really struggling to understand to connect front end app to the server. Fetching data from an API. That led me to learning the MERN stack. Everything just made sense to me how it all connects. Will definitely be doing more MERN stack projects

Andrew Baisden • Jul 14 '20

I was like that too don’t worry it’s all part of the learning process. I started off with frontend too and for years my knowledge in node was basic. But it’s actually quite simple when you realise that it’s just Javascript on the backend. Connecting the frontend to a mongodb database is also simple as is doing the CRUD requests. I will have a post tomorrow that shows how to create a simple MERN app with CRUD functionality.

ucheuzor • Jul 14 '20

Alright. Thanks. I will be expecting that.

DGAME • Aug 31 '20

Same here having this issue, backend cool but how to connect to frontend react and distribute in components been a headache

Andrew Baisden • Aug 31 '20

Check out this post I made it shows you how to do that Node and React Router Dynamic API Routes

DGAME • Aug 31 '20

Thanks just saw it 💪 would go through it.

Nick • Jul 14 '20

I'm currently studying the MERN stack so it's cool to see a post on it. Also, this is a great boiled down roadmap on what to do from start to finish on building an app.

I haven't ever used or even really looked into CI so I'm definitely taking a look at the links you have.

Thanks and great post!

Andrew Baisden • Jul 14 '20

Sure no problem there is more to come I have another MERN stack post for tomorrow.

Edem Dumenu • Jul 15 '20

This is very helpful! I recently started using MERN stack and I'm enjoying it so far. My only problem is with testing. I've tried using Jest and React testing library a couple of times and I still don't get it. It takes me forever to test my apps, do you have any good resources I could check out? Great post by the way!