Summary

In this chapter, we started off by learning that all the pages in a SPA are rendered in JavaScript with the help of a framework such as React, along with requests for data. This is handled by a backend API with the help of a framework such as ASP.NET Core. We now understand that the Startup class configures services that are used in the ASP.NET Core backend, as well as the request/response pipeline. Requests to specific backend API resources are handled by controller classes.

We also saw how CRA was leveraged by the ASP.NET Core React template to create the React app. This tool did a huge amount of setup and configuration for us, including creating a development server, bundling, linting, and even creating key polyfills for IE. We learned that the React app lives in the ClientApp folder in an ASP.NET Core React templated project, with a file called index.html being the single page. A file called package.json defines key project information for the React app, including its dependencies and the tasks that are used to run and build the React app.

This chapter has given us a great overview of all the basic parts of an ASP.NET Core React app and how they work together. We'll explore many of the topics we've covered in this chapter in greater depth throughout this book.

With the knowledge we've gained from this chapter, we are now ready to start creating the app we are going to build through this book, which we'll start to do in the next chapter.