INTRODUCING CRAB!

A React CLI tool

The crab command line utility is intended as a CLI for React. It is drawn from extensive experience with the value of the comprehensive Ember CLI tool, but also inspired in part by VueCLI and create-react-app.

You can use crab to speed up your React development workflow, quickly scaffolding an app or adding new components instantly. This also includes full support for Redux.

npm install -g crab-cli

Vs create-react-app

Crab differs from create-react-app in three core ways.

  • A more comprehensive example scaffold. In particular, fully implemented Sass support, and a working router - one of the most challenging and poorly documented areas of the React ecosystem.
  • It includes code generators, which facilitate the creation of elements of UI, while improving React's developer experience.
  • Where create-react-app is setup and built with Webpack, crab uses ParcelJS. Parcel is much more user-friendly and provides support for a huge amount of the modern web world with zero config.

Usage

create
generate
destroy
crab

Create a new React app with crab, scaffolding up an app into the provided directory.

The app created is built for rapid development, and is set up with some example routes, instructions for how to get started, working sass impementation, and support for some advanced JavaScript features like async/await.

Optionally you can also scaffold with full Redux support, which will handle all the boilerplate and bindings that comes with React + Redux.

cd ~/Code
crab create my-new-app --redux
cd my-new-app
crab generate components/ContactUs --redux
parcel index.html
code .

This will create an app with redux support, build and serve the application at http://localhost:1234 with hot module reloading, add a new redux-aware component for a contact page, and open it for editing in Visual Studio Code.

Options

Option Description
-r, --redux Include redux dependencies and files, and create App as a working redux aware container
-t, --typescript Create a TypeScript project. This will save as a permanent setting
--no-git Skip git setup, does not init repository or add a .gitignore file to application

Hello! My name is Matt Burgess and I made this website, and wrote Crab itself.

My day job is at CivicLedger, where I mostly work on crytocurrency applications for government and enterprise.

I write a lot on Medium, and also make some pretty eclectic software shared on Github. Or feel free to stop by and say hi on Reddit. Or don't. Whatever.