Yet another application ArcGIS JSAPI starter kit

I know, I know.

Lately, I’ve been working on this little starter kit in my spare time. I started it because I’ve gotten a few questions about how to build an app with the ArcGIS API 4 for JavaScript.

I’ve used this application in some demos, and I’ve gotten requests to share it. So I thought now would be a good time.

There’s no single way to build an app!

This start kit is fully my own opinion on how you can get an application up and off the ground. It has aspects of adding in third-party libraries, authentication, and building custom widgets.

Some of the features:

• TypeScript
• NPM Scripts
• Service Worker
• Intern for testing, incuding remap-istanbul for TypeScript coverage
• TSLint
• Prettier
• PostCSS
• lint-staged and husky to keep your git commits honest

That’s pretty hipster dude.

It’s unapologetically built with TypeScript. Building custom widgets with the baked-in frameowkr pretty much requires you to use TypeScript anyway with the decorators. So the whole app is built with TypeScript.

The tooling is pure NPM scripts. I’ve used just about every build system under the sun. I’m always trying to hack something, shove some build step in somewhere. I grew fatigued. So I just moved to using NPM scripts for all my tooling. Curious on more, read this old blog post on the subject.

The big benefit I’ve found is I can easily inject a build step anywhere I want. Just about every good package has a cli so it works pretty well. Not everyone has to use Webpack.

The Service Worker stuff has been a little trickier. Big thanks to Nick Peihl for helping me figure out some stuff I was stuck on. I was convinced I had to check the service worker in my cache to use it, but I was writing my Service Worker incorrectly. Yann and I had this conversation back and forth at one point and as much as it pains me to say it… he was right, I don’t need to worry about the SW in my application code. I got lots of really good info from Web Performance In Action, which I highly recommend.

Prettier is pretty cool, although I think it formats code with decorators a little odd, but it’s not a show stopper for me. I back it all up with TSLint to fix any issues it could fix. I was writing my own custom TSLint rules at one point, but it’s a dark abyss I decided I didn’t want to stay in.

There you go, enjoy the starter app, give me feedback. If you hate it, that’s cool too, please send me hate in bitcoins, thanks!