unpack
unpack is a web app scaffolding tool which generates a project boilerplate with no npm dependencies, to develop and build apps within the browser
without any build tooling.
WARNING: Not recommended for production workflows.
Installation
npx @rajasegar/unpack
Using npm
npm i -g @rajasegar/unpack
Using yarn
yarn add --global @rajasegar/unpack
Using pnpm
pnpm add --global @rajasegar/unpack
Usage
unpack
Follow the prompts to choose the Framework (React, Preact or Vue) and CDN (Skypack, jspm or unpkg).
Then switch to the newly created app directory and start a web server, something like http-server or servor. You are free to choose your own web-server tool, there is no lock-in unlike other bundlers.
cd my-react-app
servor . --reload --browse
You can also choose from predefined templates for a particular framework using:
unpack new <project-name> --template React --cdn skypack
or
unpack new my-preact-app -t Preact --cdn skypack
The --template option can have the following values:
- React
- Preact
- Vue
- Vue3
- lit-element
- hyperapp
- RxJS
- Cycle
The --cdn option can have the following values:
- jspm
- skypack
- unpkg
- esm
- jsdelivr
- esm.run
index.html (generated)
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>hello</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="app"></app>
<script type="module" src="https://jspm.dev/es-module-shims"></script>
<script type="importmap-shim">
{
"imports": {
"react": "https://cdn.skypack.dev/react?min",
"react-dom": "https://cdn.skypack.dev/react-dom?min",
"htm": "https://cdn.skypack.dev/htm?min"
}
}
</script>
<script type="module-shim">
import React from "react";
import ReactDOM from "react-dom";
import htm from "htm";
const html = htm.bind(React.createElement);
const App = () => html`<h1>Hello React from skypack</h1>`;
ReactDOM.render(html`<${App}/>`, document.getElementById('app'));
</script>
</body>
</html>How does it work?
It makes use of CDN for delivering ESM compatible JS to the browser for your favorite JS libraries and frameworks so that you can make use of the module scripts to run code inside your browser. It also makes use of import maps to enhance the developer experience to map the absolute package urls to user-friendly names so that you don't have to write import statements like:
import React from 'https://unpkg.com/react@17/umd/react.production.min.js';Instead you can simply use:
import React from 'react';Import maps are not yet mainstream, since not all the browsers implemented them and Chrome supports it behind a feature flag. That's why unpack includes the es-module-shims script to work with import maps.
Support Matrix
| Framework/CDN | Skypack | jspm | unpkg | esm.sh | jsdelivr | esm.run |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| React | ||||||
| Preact | ||||||
| Vue | ||||||
| Vue 3 | ||||||
| lit-element | ||||||
| hyperapp | ||||||
| Cycle.js | ||||||
| RxJS |
Edited the above Markdown table with tablesgenerator.com
CDN Support
Framework Support
Bundling for production
Work in progress...
Known issues
- Vue template works only with jspm