nx/docs/react/fundamentals/build-full-stack-applications.md

Building Full-Stack Applications

In this guide you will:

• Build a full-stack application using React and Express.
• Share code between frontend and backend

Creating an empty workspace

Start with creating a new workspace with the following:

npx create-nx-workspace@latest
cd myorg

Creating a Frontend Application

Now, create a frontend application using React with:

yarn add --dev @nrwl/react # Add React Capabilities to the workspace
nx g @nrwl/react:application frontend # Create a React Application

This will create the following:

myorg/
├── apps/
│   ├── frontend/
│   │   ├── src/
│   │   │   ├── app/
│   │   │   ├── assets/
│   │   │   ├── environments/
│   │   │   ├── favicon.ico
│   │   │   ├── index.html
│   │   │   ├── main.tsx
│   │   │   ├── polyfills.ts
│   │   │   └── styles.css
│   │   ├── browserslist
│   │   ├── jest.config.js
│   │   ├── tsconfig.app.json
│   │   ├── tsconfig.json
│   │   └── tsconfig.spec.json
│   └── frontend-e2e/
├── libs/
├── tools/
├── README.md
├── workspace.json
├── nx.json
├── package.json
└── tsconfig.json

You can run:

• nx serve frontend to serve the application
• nx build frontend to build the application
• nx test frontend to test the application

Creating a Node Application

Real-world applications do not live in isolation — they need APIs to talk to. Setup your frontend application to fetch some todos.

import React, { useEffect, useState } from 'react';

interface Todo {
  title: string;
}

export const App = () => {
  const [todos, setTodos] = useState<Todo[]>([]);

  useEffect(() => {
    fetch('/api/todos')
      .then(_ => _.json())
      .then(setTodos);
  }, []);

  return (
    <>
      <h1>Todos</h1>
      <ul>
        {todos.map(t => (
          <li className={'todo'}>{t.title}</li>
        ))}
      </ul>
      <button id={'add-todo'}>Add Todo</button>
    </>
  );
};

No todos will show up yet because the API does not exist. So the next step is to create the api using Express.

Create an Express application similar to how you created the React application earlier:

yarn add --dev @nrwl/express # Add Express Capabilities to the workspace
nx g @nrwl/express:application api --frontend-project frontend # sets up the proxy configuration so you can access the API in development

This will create the following:

myorg/
├── apps/
│   ├── todos/
│   ├── todos-e2e/
│   └── api/
│       ├── src/
│       │   ├── app/
│       │   ├── assets/
│       │   ├── environments/
│       │   │   ├── environment.ts
│       │   │   └── environment.prod.ts
│       │   └── main.ts
│       ├── jest.conf.js
│       ├── proxy.conf.json
│       ├── tsconfig.app.json
│       ├── tsconfig.json
│       └── tsconfig.spec.json
├── libs/
├── tools/
├── workspace.json
├── nx.json
├── package.json
└── tsconfig.json

The apps directory is where Nx places anything you can run: frontend applications, backend applications, e2e test suites. That is why the api application was generated there.

You can run:

• nx serve api to serve the application
• nx build api to build the application
• nx test api to test the application

Adding an Endpoint

Now, add an endpoint to get todos by updating apps/api/src/main.ts

import * as express from 'express';

const app = express();

interface Todo {
  title: string;
}

const todos: Todo[] = [{ title: 'Todo 1' }, { title: 'Todo 2' }];

app.get('/api', (req, res) => {
  res.send({ message: 'Welcome to api!' });
});
app.get('/api/todos', (req, resp) => resp.send(todos));

const port = process.env.port || 3333;
const server = app.listen(port, () => {
  console.log(`Listening at http://localhost:${port}/api`);
});
server.on('error', console.error);

Now, run nx serve frontend & nx serve api, and open http://localhost:4200 to see both the frontend and backend working:

The application works, but you have a small problem. The Todo interface is defined twice: once on the frontend, once on the backend. This duplication will inevitably result in the two interfaces going out of sync, which means that runtime errors will creep in. It's better to share this interface.

Sharing Code Between Frontend and Backend

Normally sharing code between the backend and the frontend would have required days of work, but with Nx, it’s done in just minutes. In Nx, code is shared by creating libraries. Because everything is in a single repository, libraries can be imported without having to publish them to a registry.

Create a new library via:

nx g @nrwl/workspace:library data # This generates a barebone library with only Typescript setup

myorg/
├── apps/
│   ├── todos/
│   ├── todos-e2e/
│   └── api/
├── libs/
│   └── data/
│       ├── src/
│       │   ├── lib/
│       │   │   └── data.ts
│       │   └── index.ts
│       ├── jest.conf.js
│       ├── tsconfig.app.json
│       ├── tsconfig.json
│       └── tsconfig.spec.json
├── tools/
├── nx.json
├── package.json
└── tsconfig.json

Next, move Todo into libs/data/src/lib/data.ts:

export interface Todo {
  title: string;
}

Finally, update the frontend and the backend to import the interface from the library.

Update apps/frontend/src/app/app.tsx:

import React, { useEffect, useState } from 'react';
import { Todo } from '@myorg/data';

export const App = () => {
  const [todos, setTodos] = useState<Todo[]>([]);

  //...
};

Update apps/api/src/main.ts:

import * as express from 'express';
import { Todo } from '@myorg/data';

const app = express();

const todos: Todo[] = [{ title: 'Todo 1' }, { title: 'Todo 2' }];

//...

After this refactor, the backend and the frontend will share the same definition of Todo and never get out of sync. Being able to factor code into a lot of small libraries with a well-defined public API, which you can then use across both the backend and the frontend, is a key feature of Nx. You can read more about it in our Monorepos and Automation guide.

Nx is Smart

Having both frontend and backend code is already something amazing. In just minutes, You have a repository which can build multiple frontend and backend applications and share code between them.

But Nx can do a lot more than that. In Nx, your libraries, backend applications, frontend applications are all part of the same dependency graph, which you can see via:

nx dep-graph

If you change the data library, Nx will know that both the backend and the frontend can be affected by the change. This information can be used to test and build all areas affected by a change making Nx a powerful full-stack development environment that scales. You can read more about this Nx capability in theMonorepos and Automation guide.

Summary

With Nx, you can:

• Build full stack applications
• Share code between backend and frontend
• Scale your workspace by understanding how the backend and frontend depend on each other and using this information to only retest/rebuilt only what is affected.