Updating create-react-app

Updating create-react-app could mean two things:

You want to update your global create-react-app install to make sure new apps you create use the latest boilerplate

In this case, you don’t need to do anything!

When you run create-react-app, it always creates the project with the latest version of react-scripts so you’ll get all the new features and improvements in newly created apps automatically.
official docs

You have a project that was created using create-react-app and you want its scripts to be brought up to the latest version

In this case, the steps are a bit more involved, since instructions differ from one version to the other 🙂 You can read the full details in the official docs, but basically the steps are:

1. Find out what react-scripts version you are using

  • Open your package.json file
  • Look under dependencies for react-scripts
  • Write down the number you see there!

In my case, the version I’m using is 1.1.0

React scripts version in package json

2. Go the docs and find out the CHANGELOG for your version

  • Open the create-react-app changelog file - CHANGELOG.md
  • Scroll through it and look for the version of react-scripts you are using
  • Once you found the version, scroll a bit more to find the “subheading” for migration instructions
  • Write down the commands you found! Those will be your upgrade steps
create-react-app changelog file
migrating steps

3. Update your app by running the migration scripts

Just run the commands you found in steps 2. inside your project folder and you should be good to go!