Create-React-App deployment to Heroku failed with ` react-scripts: not found`

@johnnycon -

This was exactly the issue and I've received the answer from Mars in this github issue post:

@philjoseph, react-scripts is (by default) a devDependency for CRA apps, but Heroku Node buildpack has environment NODE_ENV=production which causes npm install to skip devDeps.

To install those devDeps too:

npm install --only=dev && npm install && npm run build

He also pointed to this excellent repo: https://github.com/mars/heroku-cra-node

I followed this and it works like a charm :)

Since you need "react-scripts" both in development and in production, you can simple move "react-scripts": "1.0.16" from "devDependencies" into "dependencies", so heroku doesn't ignore it.

Are react-scripts declared as a devDependency or regular dependency in package.json? Since you're building on Heroku and heroku is reading the env variable as production (I'm assuming here), it won't install react-scripts. Try moving react-scripts as a regular dependency and try again.

With other cloud providers, I likely wouldn't follow this path, but with Heroku, it's the path of least resistance I've found. This article goes into a little more detail on your scenario. https://originmaster.com/running-create-react-app-and-express-crae-on-heroku-c39a39fe7851