Django ReactJs Boiler plate - With Hot reload (Webpack Version 4)

NPM :

npm install # Installs dependencies from package.json

Dependencies :

babel-cli
babel-core
babel-loader
babel-preset-env
babel-preset-react
react
react-dom
react-hot-loader
uglifyjs-webpack-plugin
webpack
webpack-bundle-tracker
webpack-cli
webpack-dev-server

Entry Component :

./assets/js/index.js - - - Renders React Component App.js

Development Builds :

./assets/bundles

Production Builds :

./assets/dist

DJango :

pip install django-webpack-loader
pip install whitenoise

Django root template config :

{% load render_bundle from webpack_loader %} 	#Imports webpack loader

<div  id="react-app"></div> #DOM root element to render

{% render_bundle 'main' %} 	#Import build template

Django settings config :

# Django's collectstatic copies bundles to the STATIC_ROOT 
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'assets/'),  
    )

STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
    
# Added webpackloader to INSTALLED_APPS
INSTALLED_APPS.append('webpack_loader')

# Configuring Django whitenoise to serve static files in production
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.storage.CompressedManifestStaticFilesStorage'
MIDDLEWARE.append('whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware')

# Used by loader in development mode and hot reload
WEBPACK_LOADER = {
    'DEFAULT': {
    'BUNDLE_DIR_NAME': 'bundles/',
    'STATS_FILE': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'webpack-stats.json'),
    }
}

# Used by loader in production mode. ie, DEBUG = False
if not DEBUG:
    WEBPACK_LOADER = {
	    'DEFAULT': {
	    'BUNDLE_DIR_NAME': 'dist/',
	    'STATS_FILE': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'webpack-stats-prod.json')
	    }
    }

Building app bundles

npm run build  # Build development bundle in assets/bundle
npm run watch  # Build development bundle and serves it to django application with hot reload
npm run build-prod  # Build production bundle in assets/dist

For Production

Set DEBUG = False and run python manage.py collectstatic to copy static files