Deploy React + Frappe on AWS with CI/CD

Shipping a split-stack product — React on the front, Frappe on the back — means two deploy surfaces, one domain, and zero tolerance for “works on my machine.” This walkthrough covers the production layout I use: Amplify for the SPA, EC2 for Frappe, Nginx as the reverse proxy, and GitHub Actions tying it together.

Architecture overview

The browser talks to Amplify for static assets and client routes. API traffic hits Nginx on EC2, which forwards /api to the Frappe bench. TLS terminates at the load balancer; Nginx handles path-based routing.

Frontend on Amplify

Connect the React repo to Amplify, set the build spec, and map environment variables for the API base URL:

version: 1
frontend:
  phases:
    preBuild:
      commands:
        - npm ci
    build:
      commands:
        - npm run build
  artifacts:
    baseDirectory: dist
    files:
      - '**/*'

Point VITE_API_URL (or your bundler equivalent) at https://kamlesh.tech/api.

Frappe on EC2

Provision Ubuntu, install bench, and run Frappe behind Gunicorn. Keep the site in production mode:

bench setup production ubuntu
bench restart

Nginx site config forwards API traffic:

location /api {
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000;
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
}

GitHub Actions pipeline

A minimal workflow runs tests, builds the frontend, and triggers Amplify deploy on merge to main:

name: Deploy
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 22
      - run: npm ci && npm test && npm run build

Checklist before go-live

• Health check on /api/method/ping
• CORS allows the Amplify origin
• Secrets in SSM Parameter Store, not .env in the repo
• Database backups scheduled

Summary

Split deployments do not have to be fragile. Amplify handles the React surface; EC2 + bench owns the API; Nginx and Actions keep routing and releases predictable.