React Chrome Extension Boilerplate

Boilerplate for building Chrome Extensions in React and TypeScript using a simple Webpack build process.

Getting Started

1. npm i to install dependancies
2. npm start to start running the fast development mode Webpack build process that bundle files into the dist folder
3. npm i --save-dev <package_name> to install new packages

Loading The Chrome Extension

1. Open Chrome and navigate to chrome://extensions/
2. Toggle on Developer mode in the top right corner
3. Click Load unpacked
4. Select the entire dist folder

Production Build

1. npm run build to generate a minimized production build in the dist folder
2. ZIP the entire dist folder (e.g. dist.zip)
3. Publish the ZIP file on the Chrome Web Store Developer Dashboard!

Initial Steps

1. git init to start a new git repo for tracking your changes, do an initial base commit with all the default files
2. Update package.json, important fields include author, version, name and description
3. Update manifest.json, important fields include version, name and description
4. Update webpack.commmon.js, the title in the getHtmlPlugins function should be your extension name

Default Boilerplate Notes

• Folders get flattened, static references to images from HTML do not need to be relative (i.e. icon.png instead of ../static/icon.png)
• Importing local ts/tsx/css files should be relative, since Webpack will build a dependancy graph using these paths
• Update the manifest file as per usual for chrome related permissions, references to files in here should also be flattened and not be relative