Use custom build output folder when using create-react-app

Question

Facebook provides a create-react-app command to build react apps. When we run npm run build, we see output in /build folder.

Answer 1

If you have arrived at this question three years after its initial posting because this is still a problem for you, consider backing this proposal to support a new BUILD_PATH environment variable.

https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/pull/8986

From the proposal's documentation:

By default, Create React App will output compiled assets to a /build directory adjacent to /src. You may use this variable to specify a new path for Create React App to output assets. BUILD_PATH should be specified as a path relative to the root of your project.

If this proposal is adopted, it would mean that customizing the output target for create-react-app becomes as simple as updating updating your build script:

// package.json
  "scripts": {
    "build": "BUILD_PATH='./dist' react-scripts build",
    // ...
  },

or adding a .env file to the root of your project:

# .env
BUILD_PATH='./dist'