Deploying React apps to GitHub Pages

Editor’s note: This article was last updated on 27 November 2023 to explore how to automate the process of deploying with GitHub Actions.

The simplicity of deploying a static website with GitHub Pages is a process that can be easily transferred to React applications. With just a few steps, it’s easy to host a React app on GitHub Pages for free or build it to deploy on your custom domain or subdomain.

In this article, we’ll explore how to deploy React apps on GitHub Pages. We’ll also demonstrate how to create a custom domain on GitHub Pages for our static website and automate the process using GitHub Actions.

Let’s get started!

Prerequisites

• A GitHub account, or set one up
• Familiarity with Git commands
• Node.js installed, or you can install it here

What is GitHub Pages?

GitHub Pages is a service from GitHub that enables you to add HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files to a repository and create a hosted static website.

The website can be hosted on GitHub’s github.io domain (e.g., https://username.github.io/repositoryname) or your custom domain. A React app can be similarly hosted on GitHub Pages.

How to deploy a React application to GitHub Pages

To deploy your React application to GitHub Pages, follow these steps:

1. Set up your React application
2. Create a GitHub repository for your project
3. Push your React app to your GitHub repository

Setting up the React application

Let’s get started by creating a new React application. For this tutorial, we’ll be using create-react-app but you can set up the project however you prefer.

Open the terminal on your computer and navigate to your preferred directory. For this tutorial, we’ll set up the project in the desktop directory, like so:

cd desktop 

Create a React application using create-react-app:

npx create-react-app "your-project-name"

In just a few minutes, create-react-app will have finished setting up a new React application! Now, let’s navigate into the newly created React app project directory, like so:

cd "your-project-name"

This tutorial is limited to demonstrating how to deploy a React application to GitHub Pages, so we’ll leave the current setup as it is without making any additional changes.

Creating a GitHub repository

The next step is to create a GitHub repository to store our project’s files and revisions. In your GitHub account, click the + icon in the top right and follow the prompts to set up a new repository:

After your repository has been successfully created, you should see a page that looks like this:

Now that the GitHub remote repository is set up, the next step is to initialize Git in the project so that we can track changes and keep our local development environment in sync with the remote repository.

Initialize Git with the following command:

git init

Now, we’ll commit our code and push it to our branch on GitHub. To do this, simply copy and paste the code received when you created a new repository (see the above repo image):

git commit -m "first commit"
git branch -M main
git remote add origin https://github.com/nelsonmic/testxx.git
git push -u origin main

Next, we’ll install the gh-pages package in our project. The package allows us to publish build files into a gh-pages branch on GitHub, where they can then be hosted.

Install gh-pages as a dev dependency via npm:

npm install gh-pages --save-dev

Now, let’s configure the package.json file so that we can point our GitHub repository to the location where our React app will be deployed.

We’ll also need to add predeploy and deploy scripts to the package.json file. The predeploy script is used to bundle the React application, and the deploy script deploys the bundled file. In the package.json file, add a homepage property that follows this structure: http://{github-username}.github.io/{repo-name}.

Now, let’s add the scripts. In the package.json file, scroll down to the scripts property and add the following commands:

"predeploy" : "npm run build",
"deploy" : "gh-pages -d build",

Here’s a visual reference:

That’s it! We‘ve finished configuring the package.json file.

Now, let’s commit our changes and push the code to our remote repository, like so:

git add .
git commit -m "setup gh-pages"
git push

We can deploy our React application by simply running: npm run deploy. This will create a bundled version of our React application and push it to a gh-pages branch in our remote repository on GitHub.

To view our deployed React application, navigate to the Settings tab and click on the Pages menu. You should see a link to the deployed React application:

Adding a custom domain

We can deploy our React app to GitHub’s domain for free, but GitHub Pages also supports custom subdomains and apex domains. Here are examples showing what each type of subdomain looks like:

Supported custom domain	Example
www subdomain	www.logdeploy.com
Custom subdomain	app.logdeploy.com
Apex domain	logdeploy.com

Right now, if we navigate to https://nelsonmic.github.io/logdeploy/, we’ll see our recently published website. But, we could also use a custom subdomain or an apex domain instead. Here are the steps to set those up:

Deploying to a GitHub custom subdomain

1. Purchase a domain name from a domain service provider of your choosing (e.g., Namecheap or GoDaddy)
2. Connect the custom domain to GitHub Pages. To do so, click on the Pages menu on the Settings tab. Next, scroll down to the Custom domain field and enter the newly purchased domain name. This will automatically create a commit with a CNAME file at the root of your repository:
   
3. Ensure the CNAME record on your domain service provider points to the GitHub URL of the deployed website (in the case of this example, nelsonmic.github.io/logdeploy/). To do so, navigate to the DNS management page of the domain service provider and add a CNAME record that points to username.github.io where username is your GitHub username.

Deploying to a GitHub apex domain

To deploy to an apex domain, follow the first two steps above for deploying to a custom subdomain but substitute the third step with the following:

1. Navigate to the DNS management page of the domain service provider and add an ALIAS record or ANAME record that points your apex domain to your GitHub Pages IP addresses, as shown:

• 185.199.108.153
• 185.199.109.153
• 185.199.110.153
• 185.199.111.153

How to deploy a React app with routing to GitHub Pages

If you’ve previously deployed a React app that uses React Router for routing to Netlify, you’re aware that you need to configure redirects for your URLs. Without redirects, users will get a 404 error when they try to navigate to different parts of your application.

Netlify makes it simple to configure redirects and rewrite rules for your URLs. All you need to do is create a file called _redirects (without any extensions) in the app’s public folder.

Then, simply add the following rewrite rule within the file:

/*    /index.html  200

No matter what URL the browser requests, this rewrite rule will deliver the index.html file instead of returning a 404.

If we want to handle page routing when we deploy to GitHub Pages, we’ll need to do something similar. Let’s configure routing for our previously deployed project.

First, we need to install a router. Start by installing React Router in the project directory, like so:

npm install react-router-dom

Then, follow the next steps.

Step 1: Connect a HashRouter to the application to enable client-side routing:

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom/client';
import './index.css';
import App from './App';
import reportWebVitals from './reportWebVitals';
import { HashRouter as Router } from "react-router-dom";

const root = ReactDOM.createRoot(document.getElementById('root'));
root.render(
    <Router>
      <App />
    </Router>
);
// If you want to start measuring performance in your app, pass a function
// to log results (for example, reportWebVitals(console.log))
// or send to an analytics endpoint. Learn more: https://bit.ly/CRA-vitals
reportWebVitals();

Our index.js file should look like the above code block. Because GitHub Pages does not support browser history, we’re employing a HashRouter. Our existing path does not assist GitHub Pages in determining where to direct the user (because it is a frontend route).

To solve this issue, we must replace our application’s browser router with a HashRouter. The hash component of the URL is used by this router to keep the UI in sync with the URL.

Step 2: Create the routes:

Create a routes folder and the required routes. These routes can be configured in the app.js file. But first, let’s create a Navbar component that can be visible on all pages.

Step 3: Create a Navbar component:

>import { Link } from "react-router-dom"
const Navbar =()=>{
      return (
            <div>
                  <Link to="/">Home</Link>
                  <Link to="/about">About</Link>
                  <Link to="/careers">Careers</Link>
            </div>
      )
}
export default Navbar;

Now we can add the Navbar component alongside the configured routes in the app.js file.

Step 4: Set up routes in the app.js file:

import './App.css';
import { Routes, Route} from "react-router-dom";
import About from "./routes/About";
import Careers from "./routes/Careers";
import Home from "./routes/Home";
import Navbar from './Navbar';
function App() {
  return (
    <>
      <Navbar />
      <Routes>
        <Route path="/" element={<Home />} />
        <Route path="/about" element={<About />} />
        <Route path="/careers" element={<Careers />} />
      </Routes>
    </>
  );
}
export default App;

Now that we’re done with the setup, let’s push our code, like so:

>git add .
git commit -m "setup gh-pages"
git push

Next, we simply deploy and our app should route properly:

>npm run deploy

Once these steps are completed, our deployed application will correctly route the user to any part of the application they desire.

Setting up a preview environment

When we configure Netlify deployments, we’re given a preview link to view our deployment before it is merged into the main branch. Let’s create the same for GitHub Pages.

We’ll use a simple tool called Livecycle for this, which saves us the trouble of having to do this using GitHub Actions. Every time we make a pull request in our repository, Livecycle assists us in creating a preview environment.

To create a preview environment, follow these steps:

1. Set up a Livecycle account; I recommend signing up with your GitHub account
2. Configure a new project and connect it to GitHub
3. Once you’ve connected to GitHub and granted Livecycle all the access it needs, you can select the repository you want to set up the preview on:
   
4. Select a template based on your project’s tech stack. For our example, we’d select Create React App NPM, as our project was built using create-react-app:
   
5. Review the configuration and deploy. For our example, we don’t need to add anything to the configurations:
   

Once deployment is successful, anytime we make a PR or push a commit to that PR, we’ll get a preview link.

Automating deployment with GitHub Actions

We would proceed to integrate GitHub Actions for automated deployments. This streamlines the deployment process and enhances efficiency. Before we can deploy the app using this approach, we’ll create a workflow file in .github/workflows/deploy.yml:

name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  workflow_dispatch:
permissions:
  contents: read
  pages: write
  id-token: write
concurrency:
  group: "pages"
  cancel-in-progress: false
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout Repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Detect package manager
        id: detect-package-manager
        run: |
          if [ -f "${{ github.workspace }}/yarn.lock" ]; then
            echo "manager=yarn" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
            echo "command=install" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
            echo "runner=yarn" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
            exit 0
          elif [ -f "${{ github.workspace }}/package.json" ]; then
            echo "manager=npm" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
            echo "command=ci" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
            echo "runner=npx --no-install" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
            exit 0
          else
            echo "Unable to determine package manager"
            exit 1
          fi
      - name: Setup Node
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: "14"
          cache: ${{ steps.detect-package-manager.outputs.manager }}
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: ${{ steps.detect-package-manager.outputs.manager }} ${{ steps.detect-package-manager.outputs.command }}
      - name: Build project
        run: ${{ steps.detect-package-manager.outputs.runner }} npm run build
      - name: Upload artifact
        uses: actions/upload-pages-artifact@v2
        with:
          path: ./build
  # Deployment job
  deploy:
    environment:
      name: github-pages
      url: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.page_url }}
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: build
    steps:
      - name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
        id: deployment
        uses: actions/deploy-pages@v3

This is called a workflow file and is used by GitHub Actions to determine how to run the jobs in it. This has two jobs: a build, and a deploy job.

• Build job: This installs the dependencies using the right dependency manager in the project, then proceeds to build the source code and stores the output in a build folder
• Deploy job: This uses the actions/deploy-pages@v3 action to deploy the build artifact from the build stage to GitHub pages

Next, run this:

git add . && git commit -m "Adds Github Actions" && git push

This will start the pipeline and proceed to deploy the built files to pages:

If you get an error: Branch "main" is not allowed to deploy to github-pages due to environment protection rules, follow these steps:

1. Go to your repository Settings
2. Click on Environments
3. Select your environment github-pages
4. Next to Deployment branches, select Selected branches from the dropdown
5. Click on Add deployment branch rule
6. Enter the pattern main

This should allow deployments from the main branch to your github-pages environment:

After adding this, retry the deploy stage, and this time it should pass successfully:

Using environment variables and secrets

Sometimes, we need to add sensitive data to applications. But to do it securely, we don’t want to hardcode it directly into the application. Let’s see how to do this with the help of GitHub Actions.

To demonstrate this, we’ll update the About.js pages to include an environment variable, add a React environment variable to GitHub as a secret, and finally add this sensitive data securely to the workflow file:

To add a new secret to GitHub, go to:

1. Settings → Secrets and Variables → Actions
2. Click the Secrets tab and click the Create New repository secret button
3. Use REACT_APP_API_KEY as the secret name, and 12345 as the secret value
4. Lastly, click on the Add Secret button:
   

Next, modify the workflow file to include this environment variable. This enables the variable REACT_APP_API_KEY to be available to pages within the app:

name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  workflow_dispatch:
permissions:
  contents: read
  pages: write
  id-token: write
concurrency:
  group: "pages"
  cancel-in-progress: false
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    env:
      REACT_APP_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.REACT_APP_API_KEY }}
    steps:
      - name: Checkout Repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Detect package manager
        id: detect-package-manager
        run: |
          if [ -f "${{ github.workspace }}/yarn.lock" ]; then
            echo "manager=yarn" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
            echo "command=install" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
            echo "runner=yarn" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
            exit 0
          elif [ -f "${{ github.workspace }}/package.json" ]; then
            echo "manager=npm" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
            echo "command=ci" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
            echo "runner=npx --no-install" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
            exit 0
          else
            echo "Unable to determine package manager"
            exit 1
          fi
      - name: Setup Node
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: "14"
          cache: ${{ steps.detect-package-manager.outputs.manager }}
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: ${{ steps.detect-package-manager.outputs.manager }} ${{ steps.detect-package-manager.outputs.command }}
      - name: Build project
        run: ${{ steps.detect-package-manager.outputs.runner }} npm run build
      - name: Upload artifact
        uses: actions/upload-pages-artifact@v2
        with:
          path: ./build
  # Deployment job
  deploy:
    environment:
      name: github-pages
      url: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.page_url }}
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: build
    steps:
      - name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
        id: deployment
        uses: actions/deploy-pages@v3

Finally, update the About.js page to this:

const apiKey = process.env.REACT_APP_API_KEY;
const About = () => {
  return <h1>About page 1.0, Secret: {apiKey}</h1>;
};
export default About;

Once deployed, we can see the environment variable displayed on the page:

Conclusion

GitHub Pages is easy to get started with and free to use, making it a desirable option for developers of all skill levels.

In this article, we demonstrated how to use GitHub Pages to convert a React app into a static website. We showed how to deploy the React app to GitHub’s domain, as well as to a custom subdomain. We also explored how to automate the process by using GitHub Actions. If you’re looking for an easy way to share your code with the world, GitHub Pages is a great option.