Deploying to Heroku

Prerequisites

Step 1: Create a Procfile

Heroku apps include a Procfile that specifies the commands that are executed by the app’s dynos.

Add a new file named Procfile in the root of your project folder. The Procfile is always a simple text file that is named Procfile exactly. For example, Procfile.txt is not valid.

Procfile Content

A Procfile declares its process types on individual lines, each with the following format:

<process type>: <command>

The code for Procfile will be:

web: node dist/server.js

Step 2: Remove `dist` from .gitignore

Make sure that dist folder is not ignored in the .gitignore file. Else, comment it as shown below:

...
# dist
...

Step 3: Build the App.

Build the app using the following command:

$ npm run build

This will create a dist folder in the root directory of the project.

Step 4: Add dist & Procfile folder to repository

$ git add . // Add everything
// --- OR --- 
$ git add dist // Just the dist folder
$ git add Procfile // Just add the Procfile

$ git commit -m "Adding dist folder & Procfile to the repository"

Step 5: Create Heroku Remote

The heroku create CLI command creates a new empty application on Heroku, along with an associated empty Git repository. If you run this command from your app’s root directory, the empty Heroku Git repository is automatically set as a remote for your local repository.

$ heroku create
Creating app... done, ⬢ thawing-inlet-61413
https://thawing-inlet-61413.herokuapp.com/ | https://git.heroku.com/thawing-inlet-61413.git

Add the remote named heroku to existing repository

$ git remote add heroku  https://git.heroku.com/thawing-inlet-61413.git

Step 6: Deploy the code

To deploy your app to Heroku, you typically use the git push command to push the code from your local repository’s master branch to your heroku remote.

$ git push heroku master
Initializing repository, done.
updating 'refs/heads/master'
...

Use this same command whenever you want to deploy the latest committed version of your code to Heroku.

Note: Make sure to build the app before committing and pushing the code to git. Heroku only deploys code that you push to the master branch of the heroku remote. Pushing code to another branch of the remote has no effect.