Quick Start Guide#

Before reading this guide, please first read the Setting Up Environment. This guide will lead you step by step to learn how to use Module Federation. We will build two independent Single Page Applications (SPAs) that will share components using Module Federation. If you encounter unfamiliar terms in the following text, please refer to the Glossary.

Note: You can also use Nx to rapidly scaffold Module Federation projects for React and Angular.

Creating a New Project#

Module Federation provides the create-module-federation tool to create projects. You don't need to install it globally; you can directly use npx to run it on-demand.

You can use create-module-federation to create a Module Federation project by running the following command:

npm create module-federation@latest

Just follow the prompts step by step. During the creation process, you can select the project type, role type, etc.

Templates#

When creating a project, you can choose from the following templates provided by create-module-federation:

Quick Creation#

create-module-federation provides some CLI options. By setting these CLI options, you can skip the interactive selection steps and create a project with one click.

For example, to create a Modern.js provider project named provider in the my-project directory with one click:

npx create-module-federation --dir my-project --template provider-modern --name provider

# Use abbreviations
npx create-module-federation -d my-project -t provider-modern -n provider

The complete CLI options for create-module-federation are as follows:

Usage: create-module-federation [options]

Options:

  -h, --help       display help for command
  -d, --dir        create project in specified directory
  -t, --template   specify the template to use
  -n, --name       specify the mf name
  -r, --role       specify the mf role type: provider or consumer
  --override       override files in target directory

Templates:

  provider-modern, provider-rsbuild, provider-rslib, provider-rslib-storybook, consumer-modern, consumer-rsbuild

Create a provider#

Execute the create-module-federation command, select the required framework and type according to your needs, and select the role type as provider to create a project.

Here we take creating an rsbuild provider project as an example:

➜  ~  ✗ npm create module-federation@latest

> npx
> create-module-federation

◆  Create Module Federation Project
│
◇  Please input Module Federation name:
│  mf_provider
│
◇  Please select the type of project you want to create:
│  Application
│
◇  Select template
│  Rsbuild
│
◇  Please select the role of project you want to create:
│  Provider
│
◇  Next steps ─────╮
│                  │
│  cd mf_provider  │
│  npm install     │
│  npm run dev     │
│                  │
├──────────────────╯
│
└  Done.

Create a consumer#

Execute the create-module-federation command, select the required framework and type according to your needs, and select the role type as consumer to create a project.

Here is an example of creating an rsbuild consumer project:

➜  ~  ✗ npm create module-federation@latest

> npx
> create-module-federation

◆  Create Module Federation Project
│
◇  Please input Module Federation name:
│  mf_consumer
│
◇  Please select the type of project you want to create:
│  Application
│
◇  Select template
│  Rsbuild
│
◇  Please select the role of project you want to create:
│  Consumer
│
◇  Next steps ─────╮
│                  │
│  cd mf_provider  │
│  npm install     │
│  npm run dev     │
│                  │
├──────────────────╯
│
└  Done.

Replace provider#

The default consumer project created will consume a published provider. If you want to replace the provider, you need to modify the remotes configuration in module-federation.config.ts.

import { createModuleFederationConfig } from '@module-federation/rsbuild-plugin';

export default createModuleFederationConfig({
  name: 'mf_consumer',
  remotes: {
-   'provider': 'rslib_provider@https://unpkg.com/module-federation-rslib-provider@latest/dist/mf/mf-manifest.json',
+   'provider': 'rslib_provider@http://localhost:3000/mf-manifest.json',
  },
  shared: {
    react: { singleton: true },
    'react-dom': { singleton: true },
  },
});

Create from existing project#

Creating a Producer#

1. Initializing the Project#

Use Rsbuild to create a provider and call the following command:

npm create rsbuild@latest

Complete the project creation according to the prompts.

? Input target folder -> federation_provider
? Select framework -> React
? Select language -> TypeScript

2. Installing Module Federation Build Plugin#

Following the steps above for initializing the project, we created a React project named federation_provider. Execute the following commands in sequence:

cd federation_provider
npm add @module-federation/enhanced
npm add @module-federation/rsbuild-plugin --save-dev

3. Exporting Modules by the Producer#

Change the entry file to asynchronous

// Move src/index.tsx to a newly created src/bootstrap.tsx file
// src/index.tsx
import('./bootstrap');

// src/bootstrap.tsx
import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom/client';
import App from './App';

const root = ReactDOM.createRoot(document.getElementById('root')!);
root.render(
  <React.StrictMode>
    <App />
  </React.StrictMode>,
);

Add a Button Component

// src/button.tsx
export default function Button() {
  return <div>Provider button</div>;
}

Export the Button component through Module Federation

import { defineConfig } from '@rsbuild/core';
import { pluginReact } from '@rsbuild/plugin-react';
import { pluginModuleFederation } from '@module-federation/rsbuild-plugin';

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [
    pluginReact(),
    pluginModuleFederation({
      name: 'federation_provider',
      exposes: {
        './button': './src/button.tsx',
      },
      shared: ['react', 'react-dom'],
    }),
  ],
  server: {
    port: 3000,
  },
});

4. Starting the Producer#

npm run dev

➜  federation_provider npm run dev

> federation_provider@1.0.0 dev
> rsbuild dev --open

  Rsbuild v0.5.1

  > Local:    http://localhost:3000/
  > Network:  http://10.94.55.204:3000/
  > Network:  http://10.4.255.21:3000/

start   Compiling...
[ Module Federation Manifest Plugin ] Manifest Link: http://localhost:3000/mf-manifest.json

After the project starts, the Manifest Link: http://localhost:3000/mf-manifest.json message appears, which is the manifest information link for Module Federation.

Creating a Consumer#

1. Initializing the Project#

Use Rsbuild to create a consumer and call the following command:

npm create rsbuild@latest

Complete the project creation according to the prompts.

? Input target folder -> federation_consumer
? Select framework -> React
? Select language -> TypeScript

2. Installing Module Federation Build Plugin#

Following the steps above for initializing the project, we created a React project named federation_consumer. Execute the following commands in sequence:

cd federation_consumer
npm add @module-federation/enhanced
npm add @module-federation/rsbuild-plugin --save-dev

3. Consuming the Producer#

Declare the Module Federation type path in tsconfig.json

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "paths":{
      "*": ["./@mf-types/*"]
    }
  }
}

Add Module Federation plugin to consume remote modules

import { defineConfig } from '@rsbuild/core';
import { pluginReact } from '@rsbuild/plugin-react';
import { pluginModuleFederation } from '@module-federation/rsbuild-plugin';

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [
    pluginReact(),
    pluginModuleFederation({
      name: 'federation_consumer',
      remotes: {
        federation_provider:
          'federation_provider@http://localhost:3000/mf-manifest.json',
      },
      shared: ['react', 'react-dom'],
    }),
  ],
  server: {
    port: 2000,
  },
});

Change the entry to be asynchronous

// Move src/index.tsx to a newly created src/bootstrap.tsx file
// src/index.tsx
import('./bootstrap');

// src/bootstrap.tsx
import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom/client';
import App from './App';

const root = ReactDOM.createRoot(document.getElementById('root')!);
root.render(
  <React.StrictMode>
    <App />
  </React.StrictMode>,
);

Reference the remote module

import './App.css';
// The remote component provided by federation_provider
import ProviderButton from 'federation_provider/button';

const App = () => {
  return (
    <div className="content">
      <h1>Rsbuild with React</h1>
      <p>Start building amazing things with Rsbuild.</p>
      <div>
        <ProviderButton />
      </div>
    </div>
  );
};

export default App;

Summary#

Through the above process, you have completed the export of a component from a 'provider' for use by a 'consumer' based on Module Federation. Along the way, you have preliminarily used and understood the configurations of remotes, exposes, and shared in the Module Federation plugin.

If you wish to learn how to directly export and consume remote modules on Webpack and Rspack build tools, you can refer to: Rspack Plugin, Webpack Plugin

Next Steps#

You may want to:

Follow Us#

• GitHub - Star us on GitHub
• Discord
• Feishu Group (Chinese Community)