Fullstack Workflow with shadow-cljs
In this post I’ll describe the workflow I use for pretty much all my projects, which often have CLJ backends with CLJS frontends. I’ll keep it generic, since backend and frontend stuff can vary and there are a great many options for which CLJ servers or CLJS frontends to use. All of them are fine to use with this pattern and should plug right in.
A common criticism of shadow-cljs is its use of npm. This even acts as a deterrent for some people, not even looking at shadow-cljs, since they don’t want to infect their system with npm. I get it. I’m not the biggest fan of npm either, but what most people do not realize that npm is entirely optional within shadow-cljs. It only becomes necessary once you want to install actual npm dependencies. But you could install those running npm via Docker if you must. So, I’ll try to write this so everyone can follow even without node/npm installed.
I also used this setup with leiningen before, it pretty much works exactly the same. You just put your :dependencies into project.clj. Do not bother with any of project.clj other features.
