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node.jsherokuangularrails-apibuildpack

Heroku Node Buildpack for Rails 5 / Angular 2 app

I am trying to deploy a Rails 5 api with an Angular 2 front end, with the Angular code living an frontend folder inside of the main Rails project.

I was able to deploy using this tutorial (https://www.angularonrails.com/deploy-angular-2rails-5-app-heroku/), and specifically this custom Heroku buildpack (https://github.com/jasonswett/heroku-buildpack-nodejs/stargazers).

While this buildpack is absolutely awesome for existing, I am a little uncomfortable depending on the custom implementation in the long run. It also means I have to rename my frontend folder to client.

Is there a way to use the main Heroku Node buildpack, and somehow pass the path of my Angular frontend folder as an ENV variable? How would I go about doing this?

I've read through the Github conversations here (https://github.com/heroku/heroku-buildpack-nodejs/pull/192) and here (https://github.com/heroku/heroku-buildpack-nodejs/pull/203) but can't make heads or tails of it.

Please help!

Solution

  • the trick is to place a package.json at root with the following:

    {
    "scripts": {
        "postinstall": "cd frontend && npm install"
    }
}

    substitute "frontend" with whatever folder the angular / node app is in.

    See github issues discussion here: https://github.com/heroku/heroku-buildpack-nodejs/issues/323#issuecomment-227520485