Publishing a React JS App

Valist simplifies the process of uploading your React JS application with various options available. The step-by-step guide provided will ensure a smooth and effortless deployment.

Step 1: Build your project statically

In most cases, you won't have to modify anything about your React build!

For tools like Create React App, you can simply run a normal build and upload your build folder.

Make sure you have created a React app:

npx create-react-app react-project

Then, inside this folder, you can simply run:

npm run build

This will create your build folder.

You can upload this to Valist directly, you're all set!

Step 2: Publishing a Release

Now that you've built your application, you have 3 different options for publishing depending on your preferences!

Web Dashboard

To publish a Release with the web dashboard, make sure your Project Type is set to web in the settings, then click New Release on your project page.

This will show a simple upload form:

• The Release Image allows you to attach an image to the release.

• The Release Name works the same way as the account and project names -- it is an immutable tag that represents the version of the release and is accessible at the account/project/release the path once published.

• The Display Name is simply a human-readable name as an alternative to the immutable tag.

• The Description is a Markdown-compatible description for the release.

The next tab allows you to drag and drop or click to upload a folder. Here is where you will drag your build folder:

After clicking Create, you will be prompted to sign a message for the release! 🚀

CLI

Note: First, you'll need to install and set up your Valist CLI by configuring its publish key. If you haven't done this yet, visit the CLI quick start (it will take less than 5 min):

💻CLI

Publishing a web app with the Valist CLI is easy, simply run the following:

valist publish account_name/project_name/release_name build

Replace the variables with your Valist Account & Project names, and give your release a release_name or tag. The release_name works the same way as the account and project names -- it is an immutable tag that represents the version of the release, and is accessible at the account/project/release the path once published.

Replace out with the path, you wish to publish.

An example publish looks like:

valist publish acme-co/next-project/0.0.1 build

This will upload the files to IPFS and create a meta-transaction, publishing your release at the designated version:

That's it! The CLI will print a few different ways to access your application, like below:

confirming transaction 0x08279fa71dc9482b55c6b638218712e34e4892f1b4f2df7bfc607f7ac2881ec1... done
successfully published acme-co/next-project/0.0.1!
view the release at:
    https://app.valist.io/acme-co/next-project/0.0.1
    https://gateway.valist.io/ipfs/bafybeigdq74jk5523p5tdhqqq5bydthewlra5klk2guot2pj3fgbx5eakm
    ipfs://bafybeigdq74jk5523p5tdhqqq5bydthewlra5klk2guot2pj3fgbx5eakm

Now you can celebrate knowing your app is available on web3! 🚀

Optional: Publishing with a valist.yml file

The Valist CLI also reads a valist.yml file to configure the publishing.

This is typically used to configure multi-platform releases (Mac/Windows/Linux/Android), but you can also use it for web projects.

An example of a web app looks like the following:

valist.yml

account: acme-co
project: next-project
release: 0.0.1
path: build

Once the valist.yml file is saved, simply run:

valist publish

It will use these values instead of the CLI arguments, making it an easy way to keep track of the previous release!

GitHub Action

Note: For more information about how the GitHub Action works, visit the following page. If you're familiar with the CLI, configuring the GitHub Action is very similar:

🧩GitHub Action

Building and publishing a web app with the Valist GitHub Action is easy!

You simply need:

• Add the Valist Publish step to the end of your app's build process

• Add a Repository Secret called VALIST_SIGNER that contains a fresh private key that has access to the Valist Project you're publishing to. For more information, visit the GitHub Action page.

Create a .github/workflows/valist.yml file like the following:

valist.yml

name: Valist Publish
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
jobs:
  valist-publish:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v3

      - name: Setup Node
        uses: actions/setup-node@v3
        with:
          node-version: '16'

      - name: Build and export Next.js app
        run: |
          npm install
          npm run build
          npm run export

      - run: echo "TIMESTAMP=$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M)" >> $GITHUB_ENV

      - name: Valist Publish
        uses: valist-io/valist-github-action@v2.5.6
        with:
          private-key: ${{ secrets.VALIST_SIGNER }}
          account: acme-co
          project: next-project
          release: github-action-${{ env.TIMESTAMP }}
          path: build

In this example, the Valist Publish step contains:

• The private-key of the address that has access to this Valist Project.

• The Valist account name.

• The Valist project name.

• The Valist release name. This works the same way as the account and project names -- it is an immutable tag that represents the version of the release, and is accessible at the account/project/release path once published.

• The path of the folder you wish to publish. In this example, it's the static Next.js output folder.

Live Example

A working example can be found here:

example-projects/nextjs-project.yml at main · valist-io/example-projectsGitHub

Publish Next.js app with the Valist GHA

add create-react-app example · valist-io/example-projects@8ada38cGitHub

Successful Workflow run

Congratulations! You now have your web app building and publishing automatically to web3! 🚀

That's all you need to publish web apps with Valist!

After publishing, your application will be highly available via IPFS, using links like the following:

https://bafybeihpv3piaiybqgqcvqmgpq3dkjz55czkndkjdqjpskagml3fnczih4.ipfs.gateway.valist.io/

You can access this IPFS hash from anywhere on the IPFS network including your own node, and from common gateways like IPFS.io, dweb.link, and Cloudflare:

http://bafybeihpv3piaiybqgqcvqmgpq3dkjz55czkndkjdqjpskagml3fnczih4.ipfs.dweb.link/

Please note that IPFS gateways that don't use subdomains are not secure for accessing web applications due to sharing the exact origin.

IPFS Gateways support either or both of the following formats:

1. Subdomain gateway mode: e.g. https://<CID>.ipfs.dweb.link/

2. Path gateway mode: e.g. https://ipfs.io/ipfs/<CID>/

You only want to access web apps from IPFS via the first type of gateway. This is because the browser will treat the subdomain as a different "origin" and therefore treat local storage and other security policies in a way that prevents other websites from interfering with your app.