Common Ninja Starter Kit - A Boilerplate Project For Building Universal E-Commerce Apps With NodeJS & React
Tags: node, react, webdev, shopify
Published: 2022-06-30 10:02:38

In one of the previous articles we wrote, we walked you through the process of [building your first Shopify app with Common Ninja, NodeJS, and React](https://dev.to/commonninja/kick-off-your-first-shopify-app-with-react-nodejs-and-common-ninja-3821).

The article was very detailed, and contained a lot of code examples, but we got some feedback from many developers that it would be helpful to get a boilerplate project that will save more time on bootstrapping a new project. 

Well, your prayer was heard, and today we're happy to launch the official **Common Ninja Starter Kit for NodeJS & ReactJS developers**.

The project is available in the link below 👇🏻, and you can follow the main `README.md` file to see how it works:
[https://github.com/CommonNinja/commonninja-node-react-starter-kit](https://github.com/CommonNinja/commonninja-node-react-starter-kit).

![Common Ninja Starter Kit](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/p2qocvm0esqn2ycciyt5.png)

The starter kit will enable you to run a single command, after which you'll be able to start working on your universal e-commerce app. The app will be able to support multiple platforms, including Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Wix, and more.

## Prerequisite

In order to run the project you'll need the following:

- [Docker](https://www.docker.com/get-started/)
- [Yarn](https://yarnpkg.com/)
- An account and an app on the [Common Ninja Developer Platform](https://www.commoninja.com/developer/apps)

Once you have these, the next step would be to prepare your environment.

## Getting Started

- Clone the starter kit repository:
```bash
git clone https://github.com/CommonNinja/commonninja-node-react-starter-kit.git
```

- Browse to the project's folder (`cd commonninja-node-react-starter-kit`) and run the following script:
```bash
./scripts/dev-setup.sh
```

- In the `packages/server` folder, edit the `.env` file and set your Common Ninja app credentials:
```bash
# Common Ninja App
COMMONNINJA_APP_ID=XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX
COMMONNINJA_APP_SECRET=cn_XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX
```

- Next, start the project by running:
```bash
docker compose up
```

- Browse to the project locally at `http://localhost:3000`.

And that's it!

You can read more about the project's structure [here](https://github.com/CommonNinja/commonninja-node-react-starter-kit/blob/main/README.md).

**What's next?**

The next thing you should do, is to start adding integrations to e-commerce platforms, and connect your app to payment providers.

You may read more about it in Common Ninja's [official documentation](https://docs.commoninja.com).

## ❓ What is Common Ninja?
[Common Ninja](https://www.commoninja.com) is a platform that allows developers to build & monetize apps for e-commerce platforms very easily. With our single e-commerce API you can build your app once, and integrate it with multiple platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix, WooCommerce, and more. There's no need to rebuild the app and make it work on every platform individually.

In addition, Common Ninja offers a set of APIs and tools that help developers to boost up the development process, and provide payments and storage solutions.

## 📚 Learn more
If you're not familiar with Common Ninja or how to build your first app using our API, here's the previous article we wrote about it.

In addition, you can use the following resources to learn more and get help:

📜 [Common Ninja Docs](https://docs.commoninja.com)
💬 [Discord Community](https://discord.com/invite/cxqUTbvMNd)