React Starter Kit for Firebase Development

N Ahmed

Completed work

Web Developer

Firebase

React

Visual Studio Code

Computer Software

React Starter Kit for Firebase a.k.a. Serverless Edition

React Starter Kit for Firebase is a popular project template (aka, boilerplate) for building modern, scalable web applications with React, Relay, and GraphQL using serverless infrastructure provided by Google Cloud (Cloud SQL, Cloud Functions, CDN hosting, and file storage). It allows you to save time and build upon a solid foundation and design patterns.

View online demo (API, data model) | Follow us on Twitter | Get FREE support on Discord | We're hiring!

This project was bootstrapped with React Starter Kit for Firebase by Kriasoft.

Tech Stack

Create React App (★ 73k) for development and test infrastructure (see user guide)

Material UI (★ 52k) to reduce development time by integrating Google's Material Design

Passport.js (★ 17k) for authentication configured with stateless JWT tokens for sessions

GraphQL.js (★ 15k) and Relay (★ 14k) for declarative data fetching and efficient client stage management

Universal Router (★ 1k) + history (★ 6k) for declarative routing and client-side navigation optimized for Relay

PostgreSQL database pre-configured with a query builder and migrations using Knex.js (★ 11k)

Google Cloud & Firebase for serverless architecture - Cloud SQL, Cloud Functions, CDN hosting, file storage (docs)

Also, you need to be familiar with HTML, CSS, JavaScript (ES2015) and React.

Directory Layout

├── build/                         # Compiled output
├── migrations/                    # Database schema migration files
├── node_modules/                  # 3rd-party libraries and utilities
├── public/                        # Static files such as favicon.ico etc.
├── scripts/                       # Automation scripts (yarn update-schema etc.)
├── src/                           # Application source code
│   ├── admin/                     # Admin section (Dashboard, User Management etc.)
│   ├── common/                    # Shared React components and HOCs
│   ├── hooks/                     # React.js hooks and Context providers
│   ├── icons/                     # Icon components
│   ├── legal/                     # Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, etc.
│   ├── misc/                      # Other pages (about us, contacts, etc.)
│   ├── mutations/                 # GraphQL mutations to be used on the client
│   ├── news/                      # News section (example)
│   ├── server/                    # Server-side code (API, authentication, etc.)
│   │   ├── mutations/             # GraphQL mutations
│   │   ├── queries/               # The top-level GraphQL query fields
│   │   ├── templates/             # HTML templates for server-side rendering
│   │   ├── types/                 # GraphQL types: User, UserRole, UserIdentity etc.
│   │   ├── api.js                 # GraphQL API middleware
│   │   ├── app.js                 # Express.js application
│   │   ├── config.js              # Configuration settings to be passed to the client
│   │   ├── context.js             # GraphQL context wrapper
│   │   ├── db.js                  # PostgreSQL database client (Knex.js)
│   │   ├── relay.js               # Relay factory method for Node.js environment
│   │   ├── index.js               # Node.js app entry point
│   │   ├── login.js               # Authentication middleware (e.g. /login/facebook)
│   │   ├── schema.js              # GraphQL schema
│   │   └── ssr.js                 # Server-side rendering, e.g. ReactDOMServer.renderToString(<App />)
│   ├── user/                      # User pages (login, account settings, user profile, etc)
│   ├── utils/                     # Utility functions
│   ├── relay.js                   # Relay factory method for browser environment
│   ├── index.js                   # Client-side entry point, e.g. ReactDOM.render(<App />, container)
│   ├── router.js                  # Universal application router
│   ├── serviceWorker.js           # Service worker helper methods
│   └── theme.js                   # Overrides for Material UI default styles
├── ssl/                           # SSL certificates for connecting to Cloud SQL instance
├── .env                           # Environment variables for local development
├── .env.production                # Environment variables for the production build
├── .env.test                      # Environment variables for the test build
├── graphql.schema                 # GraphQL schema (auto-generated, used by Relay)
└── package.json                   # The list of project dependencies + NPM scripts

Prerequisites

Node.js v10.15 or higher + Yarn v1.17 or higher (HINT: On Mac install them via Brew)

VS Code editor (preferred) + Project Snippets, EditorConfig, ESLint, Prettier, and Babel JavaScript plug-ins

Watchman file watcher used by Relay Modern

PostgreSQL v9.6 or newer, only if you're planning to use a local db for development

Getting Started

Just clone the repo, update environment variables in .env and/or .env.local file, and start hacking:

$ git clone https://github.com/kriasoft/react-firebase-starter.git MyApp
$ cd MyApp
$ yarn setup                       # Installs dependencies; creates PostgreSQL database
$ yarn start                       # Compile the app and opens it in a browser with "live reload"

Then open http://localhost:3000/ to see your app.

In order to re-compile GraphQL fragments, run yarn relay or yarn relay --watch (in watch mode).

How to Migrate Database Schema

While the app is in development, you can use a simplified migration workflow by creating a backup of your existing database, making changes to the existing migration file (see migrations/20180101000000_initial.js), re-apply the migration and restore data from the backup file (backup.sql):

$ yarn db-backup --env=dev         # Or, yarn db-backup --env=test
$ yarn db-reset-dev                # Or, yarn db-reset-test

Upon deployment to production, switch to normal migration workflow:

$ yarn db-change <name>            # Create a new database migration file
$ yarn db-migrate --env=dev        # Migrate database to the latest version

HINT: Test your migration thoroughly with a local instance of the DB first (by using --env=local or --env=dev (default) flag) then apply it to your test or prod database instance using --env=test or --env=prod command argument.

Other helpful database scripts:

$ yarn db-version --env=dev        # Print the version number of the last migration
$ yarn db-rollback --env=dev       # Rollback the latest migration
$ yarn db-restore --env=dev        # Restore database from backup.sql
$ yarn db-seed --env=dev           # Seed database with test data
$ yarn db --env=dev                # Open Knex.js REPL shell (type ".exit" for exit)
$ yarn psql --env=dev              # Open PostgreSQL shell (type "\q" for exit)

How to Test

$ yarn lint                        # Check JavaScript and CSS code for potential issues
$ yarn lint-fix                    # Attempt to automatically fix ESLint warnings
$ yarn test                        # Run unit tests. Or, `yarn test -- --watch`

How to Deploy

$ yarn build                       # Build the in production mode (NODE_ENV=production)
$ yarn deploy-test                 # Deploy the app to TEST environment
$ yarn deploy-prod                 # Deploy the app to PROD environment

For more information refer to the Deployment guide in the project's Wiki.

How to Update

If you keep the original Git history after cloning this repo, you can always fetch and merge the recent updates back into your project by running:

$ git remote add rsk https://github.com/kriasoft/react-firebase-starter.git
$ git checkout master
$ git fetch rsk
$ git merge rsk/master
$ yarn install

NOTE: Try to merge as soon as the new changes land on the master branch in the upstream repository, otherwise your project may differ too much from the base/upstream repo. Alternatively, you can use a folder diff tool like Beyond Compare for keeping your project up to date with the base repository.

How to Contribute

Anyone and everyone is welcome to contribute to this project. The best way to start is by checking our open issues, submit a new issues or feature request, participate in discussions, upvote or downvote the issues you like or dislike, send pull requests.

Learn React.js and ES6

🎓 React for Beginners and ES6 Training Course by Wes Bos 📗 React: Up & Running: Building Web Applications by Stoyan Stefanov (Aug, 2016) 📗 Getting Started with React by Doel Sengupta and Manu Singhal (Apr, 2016) 📗 You Don't Know JS: ES6 & Beyond by Kyle Simpson (Dec, 2015)

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License

Made with ♥ by Konstantin Tarkus (@koistya, blog) and contributors 👋 Get in touch!

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Completed work

Posted May 16, 2025

Developed a React and Firebase web app template for Kriasoft.

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