How to set React to production mode when using Gulp

Question

I need to run React in production mode, which presumably entails defining the following somewhere in the enviornment:

process.env.NODE_ENV = 'production';

The issue is that I'm running this behind Tornado (a python web-server), not Node.js. I also use Supervisord to manage the tornado instances, so it's not abundantly clear how to set this in the running environment.

I do however use Gulp to build my jsx files to javascript.

Is it possible to somehow set this inside Gulp? And if so, how do I check that React is running in production mode?

Here is my Gulpfile.js:

'use strict';

var gulp = require('gulp'),
        babelify = require('babelify'),
        browserify = require('browserify'),
        browserSync = require('browser-sync'),
        source = require('vinyl-source-stream'),
        uglify = require('gulp-uglify'),
        buffer = require('vinyl-buffer');

var vendors = [
    'react',
    'react-bootstrap',
    'jquery',
];

gulp.task('vendors', function () {
        var stream = browserify({
                        debug: false,
                        require: vendors
                });

        stream.bundle()
                    .pipe(source('vendors.min.js'))
                    .pipe(buffer())
                    .pipe(uglify())
                    .pipe(gulp.dest('build/js'));

        return stream;
});

gulp.task('app', function () {
        var stream = browserify({
                        entries: ['./app/app.jsx'],
                        transform: [babelify],
                        debug: false,
                        extensions: ['.jsx'],
                        fullPaths: false
                });

        vendors.forEach(function(vendor) {
                stream.external(vendor);
        });

        return stream.bundle()
                                 .pipe(source('build.min.js'))
                                 .pipe(buffer())
                                 .pipe(uglify())
                                 .pipe(gulp.dest('build/js'));

});

gulp.task('watch', [], function () {
    // gulp.watch(['./app/**/*.jsx'], ['app', browserSync.reload]);
    gulp.watch(['./app/**/*.jsx'], ['app']);
});

gulp.task('browsersync',['vendors','app'], function () {
        browserSync({
            server: {
                baseDir: './',
            },
            notify: false,
            browser: ["google chrome"]
    });
});

gulp.task('default',['browsersync','watch'], function() {});

Answer 1

2017 - Edit: anyone trying to set up React in Gulp for a new project: Just use create-react-app

---

Step I: Add the following to your gulpfile.js somewhere

gulp.task('apply-prod-environment', function() {
    process.env.NODE_ENV = 'production';
});

Step II: Add it to your default task (or whichever task you use to serve/build your app)

// before: 
// gulp.task('default',['browsersync','watch'], function() {});
// after:
   gulp.task('default',['apply-prod-environment', 'browsersync','watch'], function() {});

---

OPTIONAL: If you want to be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that you are in prod mode, you can create the following slightly enhanced task instead of the one in Step I:

gulp.task('apply-prod-environment', function() {
    process.stdout.write("Setting NODE_ENV to 'production'" + "\n");
    process.env.NODE_ENV = 'production';
    if (process.env.NODE_ENV != 'production') {
        throw new Error("Failed to set NODE_ENV to production!!!!");
    } else {
        process.stdout.write("Successfully set NODE_ENV to production" + "\n");
    }
});

Which will throw the following error if NODE_ENV is ever not set to 'production'

[13:55:24] Starting 'apply-prod-environment'...
[13:55:24] 'apply-prod-environment' errored after 77 μs
[13:55:24] Error: Failed to set NODE_ENV to production!!!!