Decoupled Frontend and Backend Hosting

This segment will help you serve an node/express application via AWS Lambda and React frontend using vercel. This tutorial will assume that you have a code editor, npm, and git on your computer. Additionally, we assume you have an AWS account set up.

File Structure

There are a lot of files in this repository which might make it confusing on what each does.

• my-app: this folder contains the frontend React application
• .gitignore: file that restricts some files from being pushed to git, we might want to do this to prevent sensitive information (API Keys) from being public
• package.json: contains all the libraries and scripts that we are going to use
• index.js: our backend application

Instructions

AWS + Serverless Setup

1. Make sure you have an AWS account and an IAM role with the following permissions:
   • AmazonAPIGatewayAdministrator
   • AmazonS3FullAccess
   • AWSCloudFormationFullAccess
   • AWSLambda_FullAccess
   • CloudWatchLogsFullAccess
   • IAMFullAccess
2. Go to the security credentials tab and create an access key.
3. Install the serverless framework

   npm install -g serverless
   

4. Configure serverless:

   $ sls config credentials \
   --provider aws \
   --key PUBLIC_KEY \
   --secret SECRET_KEY
   

5. Install node dependencies with npm install
6. Confirm installation with offline run sls offline start --httpPort 5000
7. Deploy with sls deploy

Run React Code

The code has already been written so lets verify that everything is working as expected.

1. Go to the react directory my-app
2. Run npm run start to start the application -> your app should be running on localhost:3000
3. If everything went well, then you should be seeing the default React app with "Testing, sending hello" on the screen.

Vercel Setup

We are going to deploy the frontend app on vercel, a common hosting platform for frontend (and now backend) applications. Also make sure that you have the repository forked.

1. Make sure you have a vercel account by visiting this website.
2. Add a new project and add your forked repository.
3. Choose to deploy under my-app folder and choose create-react-app.
4. Click Deploy