block-template-react
v0.4.6
Published
Block Protocol template for a React-based block
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Block template: React
Step one: copy this template
See https://blockprotocol.org/docs/blocks/develop
TL;DR: Run npx create-block-app@latest [your-block-name]
Other templates are available. See npx create-block-app@latest --help
Step two: decide on and build the entity type for your block
A key part of the Block Protocol is the use of types to describe the data your block will work with.
Your block should be associated with an “entity type” which will be used by embedding applications to understand what sorts of entities can be sent to it (e.g. what properties do they have?).
You can create an entity type on blockprotocol.org — see the docs for a full guide.
Once you have created the type representing the data your block needs, copy its URL for use in the next step.
Step three: update your block's metadata
Change into the folder:
cd path/to/your-block-name
Update the
blockprotocol
metadata object in package.json:
- set
blockEntityType
to the URL of the entity type you created in the previous step - optionally update additional fields which will be used to identify and describe the block when published:
displayName
: a friendly display nameexamples
: an array of example data structures your block would accept and useimage
: a preview image showing your block in action (in place ofpublic/block-preview.png
)icon
: an icon to be associated with your block (in place ofpublic/omega.svg
)name
: a slugified name for your block (which may differ to the packagename
in package.json); it can be defined asblockname
or@namespace/blockname
, wherenamespace
must be your username on blockprotocol.org if you intend to publish it there- this may either be in the format
slug
or@namespace/slug
wherenamespace
is your blockprotocol.org username
- this may either be in the format
- Run
yarn codegen
to automatically generate TypeScript types from your block's entity type (you can modify thecodegen
field to generate code for other types as well)
Step four: write and build your block component
Change into the folder:
cd path/to/your-block-name
Write a React component starting in
app.tsx
. To test it during development:edit
dev.tsx
to give your block starting propertiesrun the dev server with
yarn dev
(ornpm run dev
)
When finished, run
yarn build
(ornpm run build
), which:- Bundles the component into a single source file
- Generates a
block-metadata.json
file which:- brings in metadata from the
blockprotocol
object inpackage.json
you set in step 2 - lists the
externals
- libraries the block expects the host app to provide and won't bundle with itself – based on your statedpeerDependencies
(e.g."react"
)
- brings in metadata from the
The template uses a helper hook useEntitySubgraph
to extract the blockEntity
from the provided blockEntitySubgraph
.
This hook also returns linkedEntities
, which are the links and target entities attached to the entity.
Please see the Block Protocol docs for a fuller explanation of querying, creating and updating entity data from your block.
Please see the React docs for general help with writing React components.
You can format your code using yarn format
(or npm run format
).
If you want to use environment variables in development, add a .env
file in this directory, and then you can access variables defined in it via process.env.VARIABLE_NAME
. This is useful for providing a blockProtocolApiKey
to MockBlockDock
in dev.tsx
.
e.g. your .env
file might look like this:
BLOCK_PROTOCOL_API_KEY=super-secret
and dev.tsx
like this:
return (
<MockBlockDock
blockProtocolApiKey={process.env.BLOCK_PROTOCOL_API_KEY}
Step five: publish your block
Head over to blockprotocol.org to read instructions on publishing your block.
External Dependencies
The Block Component is self-contained with all of its dependencies bundled with webpack. Any dependencies that will be provided by the embedding app should be added to devDependencies
in package.json
so they're available during development, and in peerDependencies
if the component is to be made available as a library for importing via npm.
In this template, react
is added to peerDependencies
. It will not be included in the bundle. The version in the embedding application must at least provide the functionality that the block expects the library to have, or else there will be obvious difficulties.
Debugging
The component can be debugged locally by first starting yarn dev
.
Now (using VS Code), go to the Debug tab, select "Launch Chrome" and start the debugger (F5).
You should now be able to set breakpoints and step through the code.
This template was originally adapted from https://github.com/Paciolan/remote-component-starter