[FEATURE] Add build process for CSR only for use in hybrid apps about pwa-kit

[johnboxall]

Quick update, we're continuing to evaluate SSG/CSR on Managed Runtime but at this time it is not on the committed roadmap.

[drewzboto]

I wanted to confirm your approach here, as we have done some similar work in the past, but didn't carry that forward into PWA Kit.

Are you looking to take your PWA Kit code and bundle it directly in a hybrid cordova-based native app, which doesn't require any additional downloading of files/assets from PWA Kit and Managed Runtime>? Or are you trying to embed a PWA kit site into a cordova-based webview (say use the existing cart/checkout pages from PWA Kit within a hybrid native app webvview)?

We've done the 2nd approach in the past, but we haven't focused on the 1st approach at all, and that does reflect in the SSR setup and build setup

[drewzboto]

@nx-andreashabermann tagging you here to make sure you saw my clarification questions. Thank you!

[johnboxall]

Making assumptions about what you're asking for, if you'd like to use Managed Runtime to host a "vanilla" React client side rendered app, you can use "Hello World" template as a starting point:

https://github.com/SalesforceCommerceCloud/pwa-kit/tree/develop/packages/hello-world

There is also a experimental version of this template in our upcoming major version:

https://github.com/SalesforceCommerceCloud/pwa-kit/tree/black-friday-hackathon/packages/hello-world

[nx-andreashabermann]

Basically the final goal should be the 1st approach. Using hello-world would mean to start at 0, at least it should be possible to set up nearly anything from that starting point, but the development time will much higher that way.

Here are the problems I got to when trying to use pwa-kit as base implementation with client side code in the hybrid app bundle:

1. Routing: would be easier to have hash based routing for this approach
2. Proxying/Development setup: The setup for development especially proxying the requests to the apis can make different problems, e.g. CORS and building the proxy server URLs.
3. Some Commerce API endpoints do not support OPTIONS requests, so CORS preflight requests will cause errors if they get proxied to these APIs

Clientside rendering itself works as expected, as PWA is a react app.

[git2gus]

This issue has been linked to a new work item: W-14515712