Deploy ReactJS app to Azure Blob Storage through GitHub Actions

This tutorial will show you how easy it is to deploy a simple ReactJS single page application to Azure Blob Storage.

Source code: https://github.com/medhatelmasry/react2az.gitPre-requisites

The following pre-requisites are assumed:

• The latest versions of Node.js & npm are installed on your computer
• You have an Azure subscription
• You have git installed on your computer
• You have a GitHub account
• You have some basic knowledge of ReactJS

Create a simple React app

Choose a suitable working folder and then execute the following command in a terminal window to create a ReactJS app named react2az:

npx create-react-app react2az --use-npm

cd react2az 

npm start

The app will display in your default browser as shown below:

Let us make this application more interesting. 

Install the following client-side packages for bootstrap support:

npm install react-bootstrap bootstrap

Visit React-Bootstrap · React-Bootstrap Documentation for documentation on how to use Bootstrap with ReactJS.

Create /src/pages folder, then add to this new folder a file named home-page.js with content:

import React from "react";

import { useState, useEffect } from "react";

import { Card, Col, Row } from "react-bootstrap";

const HomePage = () => {

  const [toonInfo, setToonInfo] = useState({});

  useEffect(() => {

    const fetchData = async () => {

      const result = await fetch(

        `https://api4all.azurewebsites.net/api/people/`

      );

      const body = await result.json();

      setToonInfo(body);

    };

    fetchData();

  }, []);

  const renderCard = (card, index) => {

    return (

      <Col>

        <Card style={{ width: "50%" }} key={index}>

          <Card.Img variant="top" src={card.pictureUrl} />

          <Card.Body>

            <Card.Title style={{ fontSize: "12px" }}>

              {card.firstName} {card.lastName}

            </Card.Title>

            <Card.Text style={{ fontSize: "10px" }}>

              {card.occupation}

            </Card.Text>

          </Card.Body>

        </Card>

      </Col>

    );

  };

  return (

    <React.Fragment>

      <Row xs={1} sm={2} md={3} lg={5} className="g-4">

        {Array.from(toonInfo).map((item, key) => renderCard(item, key))}

      </Row>

    </React.Fragment>

  );

};

export default HomePage;

The above code accesses an API at https://api4all.azurewebsites.net/api/people/ and renders the images of some cartoon characters in a bootstrap grid of cards.

Open src/App.js in your favourite editor and made the following changes:

• Delete the first two import lines and replace them with the following:

import HomePage from './pages/home-page';

import 'bootstrap/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css';

• Delete the content inside return (. . . ); and replace with:

<div className="container">

  <HomePage />

</div>

This means that your src/App.js will look like this:

import HomePage from './pages/home-page';

import 'bootstrap/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css';

function App() {

  return (

    <div className="container">

      <HomePage />

    </div>

  );

}

export default App;

Run your application and you should experience the following web page:

Push ReactJS app to GitHub

Note that your application already contains a .gitignore file. This means that the node_modules folder will be excluded for being pushed to GitHub.

Create a local git repo by running the following command in the root of your application:

git init

git add .

git commit -m "1st commit"

Login into your GitHub account and create a repository. In my case I created a repository by the same name of the application react2az. After you create a new repository, you will see a page that looks like this:

Copy the instructions under "…or push an existing repository from the command line" and execute them in the root of your application. This pushes your code to GitHub.

If you refresh the previous GitHub page, you will see your code had indeed been pushed to GitHub:

Create Storage Account on Azure

Visit https://portal.azure.com/ and login into your Azure subscription. Click on "Create a resource":

In the search field, enter the word storage, hit ENTER, then click on "Storage account".

Click on the blue Create button:

Beside "Resource group", click on "Create new" and give your resource group a suitable name. 

Meantime, change the other settings so that they are similar to the following:

Click on "Review + create":

On the next screen, click on Create. After a short while, your storage account will be provisioned and your page will look like this:

Click on "Go to resource".  In the search field, enter the word static then click on "Static website". 

Click on Enabled.

Enter index.html and 404.html then click on Save at the top.

Your static website will be placed into a folder named $web. You can go ahead and click on it to see that it contains nothing:

Click on your browser back button, clear the search field, then select "Access keys".

Click on "Show keys", copy the connection string, then temporarily paste it in a a text editor.

GitHub Actions

In GitHub, click on Settings:

Click on Secrets followed by Actions:

Click on "New repository secret".

Create a key named AZURE_STORAGE then paste the connection string that you previously saved in a text editor. Click on "Add secret".

Add a folder .github/workflows to your source code. Inside that folder, create a text file named react2az.yml with the following content:

name: Deploy React App to Azure Storage

on:

  push:

    branches:

      - main

  pull_request:

    branches:

      - '*'

defaults:

  run:

    working-directory: ./

env:

  NODE_VERSION: '17'                # set this to the node version to use

  CI: false

jobs:

  build-and-deploy:

    name: Build and Deploy

    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:

    - uses: actions/checkout@v2

    - name: Use Node.js ${{ env.NODE_VERSION }}

      uses: actions/setup-node@v1

      with:

        node-version: ${{ env.NODE_VERSION }}

    - name: npm install & build

      run: |

        # Build and test the project, then

        # deploy to Azure Web App.

        npm install

        npm run build

    - name: 'Deploy react app to Azure blob storage'

      uses: bacongobbler/azure-blob-storage-upload@main

      with:

          source_dir: './build'

          container_name: '$web'

          connection_string: ${{ secrets.AZURE_STORAGE }} 

          sync: 'true'

Once this file gets pushed or created on GitHub, you can see that the workflow gets kicked off. Click on Actions and you will see a workflow running. This workflow will likely have a different name than "workflow". 

If all goes well, the workflow will turn green, meaning that it completed successfully:

Viewing our web application

You must be dying to view the application hosted on Azure. Return to the Azure portal then go to "static websites". The URL for accessing your application is beside "Primary endpoint".

Visit the primary endpoint URL and you will see that your ReactJS app is happily hosted on Azure:

In Azure, if you click on $web you will see your files on Azure Blob Storage.

Happy coding and deploying.