Express Starter

Express Starter is intended to be used in conjunction with React Starter where both the server directory (express) and the client directory (react) are siblings.

some-project/
|-- client-dir/
`-- server-dir/

The folder in which these two live is not under version control. However, its children each belong to a separate repository so that version control for both is achieved but independent of the other.

It's all about the build

This structure aims to simplify the build process prior to deployment by executing it enitrely on your local machine. As such, this setup is not recommended for teams. It is ideal for developers working solo because it removes the complexity of debugging issues that come with running a build on an external server. Builds are initiated localy by the server and, when executed, build files are created on the client and then immediately moved to the server. From there, they are pushed to production. If client and server are not siblings, the builds will fail. Furthermore, you must specify the name of the client directory in the server's package.json where the scripts build:dev and build:prod are defined.

Branching strategy (WIP)

There are two branches – main and prod.

Branch main

• remote points to GitHub
• ignores everything in build/

Branch prod

• remote points to Heroku
• includes everything in build/ when pushed to Heroku
• never push prod to GitHub
• commits should be limited to the latest build files only; commits made to prod that are not made to main first should be rare
• never merge code from main to prod; instead use git rebase main when on prod