Use custom build output folder when using create-r

Question

Facebook provides a create-react-app command to build react apps. When we run npm run build, we see output in /build folder.

npm run build

Builds the app for production to the build folder. It correctly bundles React in production mode and optimizes the build for the best performance.

The build is minified and the filenames include the hashes. Your app is ready to be deployed!

How can we use custom folder instead of /build for the output? Thanks.

Answer 1

I had the scenario like want to rename the folder and change the build output location, and used below code in the package.json with the latest version
"build": "react-scripts build && mv build ../my_bundles",

Answer 2

Open Command Prompt inside your Application's source. Run the Command

npm run eject

Open your scripts/build.js file and add this at the beginning of the file after 'use strict' line

'use strict';
....
process.env.PUBLIC_URL = './' 
// Provide the current path
.....

Open your config/paths.js and modify the buildApp property in the exports object to your destination folder. (Here, I provide 'react-app-scss' as the destination folder)

module.exports = {
.....
appBuild: resolveApp('build/react-app-scss'),
.....
}

Run

npm run build

Note: Running Platform dependent scripts are not advisable

Answer 3

Félix's answer is correct and upvoted, backed-up by Dan Abramov himself.

But for those who would like to change the structure of the output itself (within the build folder), one can run post-build commands with the help of postbuild, which automatically runs after the build script defined in the package.json file.

The example below changes it from static/ to user/static/, moving files and updating file references on relevant files (full gist here):

package.json

{
  "name": "your-project",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  [...]
  "scripts": {
    "build": "react-scripts build",
    "postbuild": "./postbuild.sh",
    [...]
  },
}

postbuild.sh

#!/bin/bash

# The purpose of this script is to do things with files generated by
# 'create-react-app' after 'build' is run.
# 1. Move files to a new directory called 'user'
#    The resulting structure is 'build/user/static/<etc>'
# 2. Update reference on generated files from
#    static/<etc>
#     to
#    user/static/<etc>
#
# More details on: https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/issues/3824

# Browse into './build/' directory
cd build
# Create './user/' directory
echo '1/4 Create "user" directory'
mkdir user
# Find all files, excluding (through 'grep'):
# - '.',
# - the newly created directory './user/'
# - all content for the directory'./static/'
# Move all matches to the directory './user/'
echo '2/4 Move relevant files'
find . | grep -Ev '^.$|^.\/user$|^.\/static\/.+' | xargs -I{} mv -v {} user
# Browse into './user/' directory
cd user
# Find all files within the folder (not subfolders)
# Replace string 'static/' with 'user/static/' on all files that match the 'find'
# ('sed' requires one to create backup files on OSX, so we do that)
echo '3/4 Replace file references'
find . -type f -maxdepth 1 | LC_ALL=C xargs -I{} sed -i.backup -e 's,static/,user/static/,g' {}
# Delete '*.backup' files created in the last process
echo '4/4 Clean up'
find . -name '*.backup' -type f -delete
# Done

Answer 4

Create-react-app Version 2+ answer

For recent (> v2) versions of create-react-app (and possible older as well), add the following line to your package.json, then rebuild.

"homepage": "./"

You should now see the build/index.html will have relative links ./static/... instead of links to the server root: /static/....