Host react app in GitHub pages for free

There is a lot of documentation out there to host your react app on GitHub pages for FREE, which is accessible via https://<git_user>.github.io/<repo_name>
ex: adam.github.io/portfolio , vishnu.github.io/my-dev

But this doc will guide you to host react app at https://<git_user>.github.io (no need to cling the repo name with URL)
ex: adam.github.io , vishnu.github.io

This approach is preferred for hosting a portfolio or dev-profile website.

There are three types of GitHub Pages sites:

User Site
Project Site
Organization Site

This blog is inclined toward setting up a User Site

Let's get started!

Step 1 - Create a repo on GitHub

Create a new GitHub repo named username.github.io (replace username with your current git user name) and make it Public (to host private repo in GH pages you need a GitHub Enterprise account)

Step 2 - Create React app and Push to repo

Create your react app following the official doc - https://create-react-app.dev/docs/getting-started/

Init git and push it to the above-created repo

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

Step 3 - Setup gh-pages

The npm package gh-pages helps in configuring and deploying your app to GitHub pages

npm install gh-pages — save-dev

Homepage property

Add the below homepage property to your package.json file.

For free GitHub user site, add this: 
"homepage": "https://{username}.github.io"

If you own a domain, add this:
"homepage": "https://mydomainname.com"

Deploy Script

Add both predeploy and deploy property scripts to the package.json as below

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

predeploy - bundle the react application
deploy - deploy the bundled file.

Push these changes to the git repo

git commit -m "configure gh-pages"
git push

Step 4 - Deploy the app to GitHub Pages

Run the below command to deploy your react application to GitHub Pages

npm run deploy

Step 5 - Finally access the deployed site

Go to the GitHub repo
Click Settings menu
Go to the Code and Automation -> Pages section
In the Build and Deployment section, select Source to Deploy from a branch
Select the branch to "gh-pages" and click on the "Save" button

Visit username.github.io and check out your site.

Yayy!

Your website is hosted for FREEEE in GitHub Pages and accessible to the world.

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