How to setup MSW in a React project using Vite

Published Jan 9, 2023

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Updated Dec 15, 2024

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1 minutes read

Tl;dr: Sample Project with React, Vite and MSW

First of all, you must have a Vite project. After that, you can install MSW with the following command:

npm install msw --save-dev

Setup MSW

To setup MSW, you'll create a file called handlers.ts in the src directory or in any other fold. This file will contain all of your handlers:

import { rest } from "msw";
 
// This handler will intercept any rest request in your project.
export const handlers = [];

Example:

import { rest } from "msw";
export const handlers = [
  rest.get(
    "https://https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/todos/1",
    (_, res, ctx) => {
      return res(
        ctx.status(200),
        ctx.json({
          userId: 1,
          id: 1,
          title: "delectus aut autem",
          completed: false,
        })
      );
    }
  ),
];

After that, two new files will be created, one that will intercept the browser request, and other, that will intercept the Node request. For example:

import { setupServer } from "msw/node";
 
import { handlers } from "./handlers";
 
export const server = setupServer(...handlers);

import { setupWorker } from "msw";
 
import { handlers } from "./handlers";
 
export const worker = setupWorker(...handlers);

Setup the application

With the files created, you can now setup the application. First, you'll import the browser.ts in the entrypoint file of your project. For example:

import { StrictMode } from "react";
import { createRoot } from "react-dom/client";
 
import { App } from "@/App"; // The main component of the application.
 
// The root element where React will be mounted.
const root = createRoot(document.getElementById("root") as HTMLElement);
 
if (import.meta.env.MODE === "development") {
  // When development, setup the MSW.
  // import the worker (under the browser.ts file)
  import("./browser")
    .then(({ worker }) => {
      // Start the worker.
      worker.start();
    })
    .then(() => {
      // Render the application.
      root.render(
        <StrictMode>
          <App />
        </StrictMode>
      );
    });
} else {
  // Render the application in production without the MSW.
  root.render(
    <StrictMode>
      <App />
    </StrictMode>
  );
}

Setup the tests

In your test setup, import the server.ts, and start the server. For example:

import { server } from "./server";
 
beforeAll(() => {
  server.listen({ onUnhandledRequest: "error" });
});
 
afterEach(() => {
  server.resetHandlers();
});
 
afterAll(() => {
  server.close();
});

Project example

You can find a project example in the following repository: https://github.com/raisiqueira/example-msw-vite/

Useful links

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