Inertia ships with official server-side adapters for Laravel. In this article, we will install Inertia.js in Laravel with React.js.

First, we will perform server-side installation and then continue with the client-side installation.

Step 1 — Install the Inertia package in your Laravel project

Run the command below to install the Inertia package in your project via composer:

composer require inertiajs/inertia-laravel

Step 2 — Add root template

Create a new file, app.blade.php in resources/views and paste the below code. This file will be loaded on the first page visit. This will be used to load your site assets (CSS and JavaScript), and will also contain a root <div> to boot your JavaScript application in.

Step 3 — Setup middleware

Next, setup the inertia middleware. Run the below command to do the same.

php artisan inertia:middleware

Once generated, register the HandleInertiaRequests middleware in your App\Http\Kernel, as the last item in your web middleware group.

'web' => [

// ...

\App\Http\Middleware\HandleInertiaRequests::class,

],

Now, our server-side installation is done.

Next, we will perform the client-side installation.

Step 4 — Install client-side dependencies

Install the Inertia client-side adapters using NPM or Yarn.

npm install @inertiajs/inertia @inertiajs/inertia-react

yarn add @inertiajs/inertia @inertiajs/inertia-react

Step 5 — Initialize app

Next, update your main JavaScript file app.js in resources/js/app.js. If you have existing app.js in that folder, rename the old file, create a new app.js, and write the below code in that file. What we’re doing here is initializing the client-side framework with the base Inertia component.

Step 6 — Install babel plugins

Why do we need Babel? Code splitting breaks apart the various pages of your application into smaller bundles, which are then loaded on demand when visiting new pages. This can significantly reduce the size of the initial JavaScript bundle, improving the time first to render. To use code splitting with Inertia, you’ll need to enable dynamic imports. That’s why you’ll need a Babel plugin to make this work.

Run the below commands to install the babel plugins:

npm install @babel/plugin-syntax-dynamic-import

yarn add @babel/plugin-syntax-dynamic-import

Next, create a new file `.babelrc` in your project and add the following code.

Step 7 — Create a Test.js component

Now, create a new Test.js component in `resources/js/Pages` for testing if our integration is successful.

Step 8 — Make controller and route

To render the component, make TestController and add a new route in web.php.

Conclusion

That’s it.

Try to call the route project_url/test, and your inertia with React in Laravel integration is done.
Hope you found this article helpful.

This article was written by Aanchal Goyal, Software Engineer at GeekyAnts.