How to Manually Bootstrap / Install Create-Redwood-App

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These instructions are outdated as of Redwood v0.24. See the “Solution” below for updated instructions.

If you’ve tried yarn create redwood-app my-dir-name and only run into errors despite updating versions and checking prerequisites, there is one more option. You can manually bootstrap your own app. We don’t recommend this path, but we know sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

1. Get the latest release of create-redwood-app

Go to redwoodjs/create-redwood-app. Then download and unpack the latest release. You’ll probably want to rename the folder.

You can also clone via git from the master branch (note: the master branch often contains commits not yet in a stable release.)
$ git clone git@github.com:redwoodjs/create-redwood-app.git your-dir-name

2. Set .gitignore and README.md files to app versions

Remove the file .gitignore and change the name of .gitignore.app to .gitignore.
To do this by command line, use:
$ rm .gitignore && mv .gitignore.app .gitignore

Remove the file README.md and change the name of README_APP.md to README.md. To do this by command line, use:
$ rm README.md && mv README_APP.md README.md

3. Install packages

Note: if your node and yarn versions don’t meet the requirements in package.json, the installation process will give an error. See the Redwood tutorial for node and yarn upgrade instructions.

$ yarn install

4. Initialize git and add your first commit

$ git init && git add .
$ git commit -m 'I rocked the manual bootstrap!'

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Outdated as of Redwood v0.24.0

Starting with v0.24.0, the installation template is included in the NPM package create-redwood-app and no longer a separate repo. This means the instructions above no longer apply.

This should resolve any issues. However, if you have any questions or do seem to need help with a manual installation process, please don’t hesitate to ask via a reply.

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Manual Installation for v0.24 (or newer)

As of v0.24, the Template codebase is included in the npm package create-redwood-app, which will make it easier for individuals behind a firewall to run the installer.

If for some reason the installation does not run, you can still step through a manual download and install.

Download the NPM Package and Manually Run Installation

First, download a .tgz of the NPM package:

npm pack create-redwood-app

This will download the file create-redwood-app-[current-version].tgz. For this example, I’ll use 0.24.0 for [current-version].

Then unpack the file into a directory called package/:

tar zxvf create-redwood-app-0.24.0.tgz

Move the included Template codebase into a new project directory:

mv package/template path/to/project

Enter the project and run yarn installation:

cd path/to/project
yarn install

You’re ready to yarn redwood dev :rocket: