You can build a web app with a Go server and React UI with just three dependencies. You can distribute the app as a single executable binary, while having a great development experience. This repository demonstrates how to do it. The key concepts are detailed in the story Minimalist Go React App on Medium.
If you enjoy the minimalist style, use this repository as a template for your own app. You can replace React with any other UI framework, or install additional dependencies.
Install Go and Node.js.
brew install go
brew install node
Run the app with scripts/run. Once the server starts, open http://localhost:8080 in your browser.
You can instantly view changes to files in the static, templates, and ui directories by refreshing the page. To view changes to .go files, stop the server and run scripts/run again.
Run scripts/build which will produce a single executable binary file minimalist-go-react-app in the build directory. By default, the binary is built for your current operating system and architecture. You can build for other operating systems and architectures like this:
# macOS Apple Silicon
GOOS=darwin GOARCH=arm64 scripts/build
# macOS Intel Chip
GOOS=darwin GOARCH=amd64 scripts/build
# Windows x64
GOOS=windows GOARCH=amd64 scripts/build
You can find all available combinations of GOOS and GOARCH in the official documentation.
Although the goal is to demonstrate the single executable binary distribution, Docker is a good choice for cloud deployment. Dockerfile is included.
If you have Docker installed, you can run scripts/docker to build and run the Docker image.