Generate React CLI

Why?

To help speed up productivity in React projects and stop copying, pasting, and renaming files each time you want to create a new component.

A short article goes deeper into why we created GRC if you have the time.

You can also watch an excellent video tutorial on how to use GRC by Eric Murphy.

Table of Contents:

• Config file
• Generate components
• Custom component types
• Custom component templates
• Custom component directory
• Custom component files
• OpenAi integration (Alpha release)

You can run it using npx like this:

  npx generate-react-cli component Box

(npx is a package runner tool that comes with npm 5.2+)

Config File

When you run GRC within your project the first time, it will ask you a series of questions to customize the cli for your project needs (this will create a "generate-react-cli.json" config file).

Example of the generate-react-cli.json config file:

{
  "usesTypeScript": true,
  "usesCssModule": true,
  "cssPreprocessor": "scss",
  "testLibrary": "Testing Library",
  "component": {
    "default": {
      "path": "src/components",
      "withLazy": false,
      "withStory": false,
      "withStyle": true,
      "withTest": true
    }
  }
}

Generate Components

  npx generate-react-cli component Box

This command will create a folder with your component name within your default (e.g. src/components) directory, and its corresponding files.

Example of the component files structure:

|-- /src
    |-- /components
        |-- /Box
            |-- Box.js
            |-- Box.css
            |-- Box.test.js

Options

You can also override some of the GRC component config rules using one-off commands. So for example, let's say you have set withTest to be true in the component.default property. You can override it like this:

  npx generate-react-cli component Box --withTest=false

Or vice versa, if you have set withTest to be false you can do this:

  npx generate-react-cli component Box --withTest=true

Otherwise, if you don't pass any options, it will just use the default values that you have set in the GRC config file under component.default.

Options	Description	Value Type	Default Value
--path	Value of the path where you want the component to be generated in (e.g. src/components).	String	component.default.path
--type	You can pass a custom component type that you have configured in the GRC config file that has its own set of component config rules. Read more about custom component types.	String	component.default
--withLazy	Creates a corresponding lazy file (a file that lazy-loads your component out of the box and enables code splitting) with this component.	Boolean	component.default.withLazy
--withStory	Creates a corresponding (storybook) story file with this component.	Boolean	component.default.withStory
--withStyle	Creates a corresponding stylesheet file with this component.	Boolean	component.default.withStyle
--withTest	Creates a corresponding test file with this component.	Boolean	component.default.withTest
--dry-run	Show what will be generated without writing to disk	Boolean	false
--flat	Generate the files in the mentioned path instead of creating new folder for it	Boolean	false
--customDirectory	Template value that overrides the name of the directory of the component to be generated in. See more under custom component directory.	String	null

Custom component types

By default, GRC will use the component.default configuration rules when running the component command out of the box.

What if you wanted to generate other types of components that have their own set of config rules (e.g., page or layout)?

You can do so by extending the generate-react-cli.json config file like this.

{
  "usesTypeScript": false,
  "usesCssModule": true,
  "cssPreprocessor": "scss",
  "testLibrary": "Testing Library",
  "component": {
    "default": {
      "path": "src/components",
      "withLazy": false,
      "withStory": false,
      "withStyle": true,
      "withTest": true
    },
    "page": {
      "path": "src/pages",
      "withLazy": true,
      "withStory": false,
      "withStyle": true,
      "withTest": true
    },
    "layout": {
      "path": "src/layout",
      "withLazy": false,
      "withStory": false,
      "withStyle": false,
      "withTest": true
    }
  }
}

Now you can generate a component with your custom component types like this:

  npx generate-react-cli component HomePage --type=page

  npx generate-react-cli component BoxLayout --type=layout

You can also pass the same options to your custom component types as you would for the default component type.

Custom component templates

You can also create your own custom templates that GRC can use instead of the built-in templates that come with it. We hope this will provide more flexibility for your components that you want to generate.

There is an optional customTemplates object that you can pass to the component.default or any of your custom component types within your generate-react-cli.json config file.

Example of the customTemplates object:

"customTemplates": {
  "component": "templates/TemplateName.js",
  "lazy":  "templates/TemplateName.lazy.js",
  "story":  "templates/TemplateName.story.js",
  "style": "templates/TemplateName.style.scss",
  "test":  "templates/TemplateName.test.js"
},

The keys represent the type of file, and the values are the paths that point to where your custom template lives in your project/system. Please note the TemplateName keyword in the template filename. GRC will use this keyword and replace it with your component name (in whichever format you typed the component name in the command) as the filename.

Example of using the customTemplates object within your generate-react-cli.json config file:

{
  "usesTypeScript": false,
  "usesCssModule": true,
  "cssPreprocessor": "scss",
  "testLibrary": "Testing Library",
  "component": {
    "default": {
      "customTemplates": {
        "component": "templates/component/TemplateName.js",
        "style": "templates/component/TemplateName.style.scss",
        "test": "templates/component/TemplateName.test.js"
      },
      "path": "src/components",
      "withStyle": true,
      "withTest": true,
      "withStory": true,
      "withLazy": false
    },
    "page": {
      "customTemplates": {
        "test": "templates/page/TemplateName.test.js"
      },
      "path": "src/pages",
      "withLazy": true,
      "withStory": false,
      "withStyle": true,
      "withTest": true
    }
  }
}

Notice in the page.customTemplates that we only specified the test custom template type. That's because all the custom template types are optional. If you don't set the other types, GRC will default to using the built-in templates it comes with.

Example of a custom component template file:

// templates/component/TemplateName.js

import React from 'react';
import styles from './TemplateName.module.css';

const TemplateName = () => (
  <div className={styles.TemplateName} data-testid="TemplateName">
    <h1>TemplateName component</h1>
  </div>
);

export default TemplateName;

Important: You can use the following keywords within your custom templates to format the component name. Note that the built-in GRC templates use templatename casing by default:

Keyword	Replacement
templatename	component name in raw case (whichever format the user typed the component name in the command)
TemplateName	component name in PascalCase
templateName	component name in camelCase
template-name	component name in kebab-case
template_name	component name in snake_case
TEMPLATE_NAME	component name in uppercase SNAKE_CASE

Example of a custom test template file:

// templates/component/TemplateName.test.js

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import TemplateName from './TemplateName';

it('It should mount', () => {
  const div = document.createElement('div');
  ReactDOM.render(<TemplateName />, div);
  ReactDOM.unmountComponentAtNode(div);
});

Custom component directory

Using the customDirectory you can easily override the directory name for the component generated. For instance, if prefixes are required for particular components or if template names will be mixed, the customDirectory option will allow you to override the way that GRC generates the name of the directory where the component files will live.

The customDirectory directive allows all supported casings (see previous section) and can be overridden at the following levels in ascending specific of priority:

• top
• component.default
• component.type
• CLI

Example:

For React Context Providers in a project, the decision has been made to separate Context generation from the visual components.

In a typical configuration the configuration would look as following:

{
  "provider": {
    "path": "src/components/providers",
    "withLazy": false,
    "withStory": true,
    "withStyle": false,
    "withTest": true,
    "withTypes": true,
    "withContext": true,
    "customTemplates": {
      "component": "src/components/templates/provider/TemplateName.tsx",
      "context": "src/components/templates/provider/TemplateName.context.ts",
      "story": "src/components/templates/provider/TemplateName.stories.tsx",
      "test": "src/components/templates/provider/TemplateName.test.tsx",
      "types": "src/components/templates/provider/TemplateName.types.ts"
    }
  }
}

With the configuration above, the component would be required to either follow a full or a minimalistic naming convention. I.e. the component would either need to be generated as ThemeProvider and consequently the context name would be generated as ThemeProviderContext, or by renaming the files and templates as TemplateNameProvider but with the downside of the component path being generated as src/components/providers/Theme. This creates inconsistent naming in the directory containg the component files.

To work around this, the customDirectory option can be used to enforce a particular style.

{
  ...
  "provider": {
    "path": "src/components/providers",
      "withLazy": false,
      "withStory": true,
      "withStyle": false,
      "withTest": true,
      "withTypes": true,
      "withContext": true,
      "customDirectory": "TemplateNameProvider",
      "customTemplates": {
          "component": "src/components/templates/provider/TemplateNameProvider.tsx",
          "context": "src/components/templates/provider/TemplateName.context.ts",
          "story": "src/components/templates/provider/TemplateNameProvider.stories.tsx",
          "test": "src/components/templates/provider/TemplateNameProvider.test.tsx",
          "types": "src/components/templates/provider/TemplateNameProvider.types.ts"
      }
  }
  ...
}

The above configuration would allow you to mix and match different template names and keep naming consistent.

If we executed GRC with the above configuration (npx generate-react-cli component Theme --type=provider), the result would look like this:

src/components/providers/ThemeProvider/Theme.context.ts
src/components/providers/ThemeProvider/ThemeProvider.tsx
src/components/providers/ThemeProvider/ThemeProvider.stories.tsx
src/components/providers/ThemeProvider/ThemeProvider.test.tsx
src/components/providers/ThemeProvider/ThemeProvider.types.ts

Similarly, this construct could be used as a shortcut for generating other named components, like the BoxLayout example above, depending on that could be shortened to:

  npx generate-react-cli component Box --type=layout --customDir=TemplateNameLayout

Or it could be used to generate files with a naming convention with Test, Lazy, Context, Theme, or Provider suffixes. Or even combined with skeleton CSS

Custom component files

GRC comes with corresponding built-in files for a given component if you need them (i.e., withStyle, withTest, withStory, and withLazy).

What if you wanted to add custom files of your own?

For example, let's say you wanted to add an index.js file for each component, so you don't have to add the additional component name with each import (i.e., import Box from './components/Box' instead of import Box from './components/Box/Box').

Or maybe you need an additional style file for your component stories.

You can do so by editing your generate-react-cli.json config file like so.

{
  "usesTypeScript": false,
  "usesCssModule": false,
  "cssPreprocessor": "css",
  "testLibrary": "Testing Library",
  "component": {
    "default": {
      "path": "src/components",
      "withStyle": true,
      "withTest": true,
      "withStory": true,
      "withLazy": false,
      "withIndex": true,
      "withStoryStyle": true,
      "customTemplates": {
        "index": "templates/default/index.js",
        "storyStyle": "templates/default/TemplateName.stories.css"
      }
    }
  }
}

// templates/default/index.js

export { default } from './TemplateName';

/* templates/default/TemplateName.stories.css */

.TemplateName {
}

In this case, we added a withIndex & withStoryStyle to the component.default. Note: You can add custom files to any of your custom component types.

You should also see that we added index and storyStyle to our customTemplates object. That's because custom files require custom templates. Otherwise, you will get an error when you generate a component.

Also, we used the TemplateName keyword for the storyStyle custom file. GRC will generate this corresponding file and replace TemplateName with the component name.

License

Generate React CLI is an open source software licensed as MIT.