Gatsby: Having a `src` directory as the root of all source files

[0x80]

I consider the use of a src directory a pretty useful convention. Is there a particular reason you choose to not have that structure for Gatsby? It seems a bit clumsy to me having all these different source directories directly in the root of the project.

A src directory makes certain configurations easier to manage since sources are clearly separated from config files, static asset or data and node-modules and such. For example having webpack resolve all directories in src for easy import statements, or running some tool like prettier-eslint over all js files.

Right now I was trying to do just that, and prettier-eslint appears to have a bug where it's not respecting the .eslintignore contents correctly, munching away on my node-modules directory.

When using GraphQL to serve data from files which are fetched from an external API, I would expect those files to live in a location like data next to src, indicating that that might not be part of the repository.

Maybe you have your reasons. I'm curious to know.

[KyleAMathews]

So @fabien0102 has been working on this exact issue actually https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/pull/802 and we've been discussing this in Discord.

My main problem with his PR has been the idea of adding another configuration option as every bit of configuration has a very high cost — sometimes costs you don't realize until down the road when a configuration option adds all sorts of complexity to adding a new feature or event prevents the new feature from being added altogether.

So no new configuration options unless they're super high value.

Which... setting a different root directory isn't.

But his and your's arguments are persuasive that it'd be a lot simpler if all site src code was gathered under one directory.

So here's a proposed directory structure:

├── .cache // Stuff gets cached here. Shouldn't be under source control.
├── README.md
├── data // dump images, json, csv, yaml, etc. here.
├── gatsby-config.js
├── gatsby-node.js
├── plugins // Additional site-specific plugins
├── src // Everything related to the frontend goes here.
│   ├── components
│   │   └── header.js
|   ├── css
│         └── prism-coy.css
│   ├── html.js
│   ├── layouts
│   │   └── index.js
│   ├── pages
│   ├── templates
│   │   └── blog-post.js
│   └── utils
│       └── typography.js
├── static // Everything in this directory gets copied directly into public
├── public // Output directory

Thoughts?

[0x80]

That is pretty much exactly the structure I would have proposed 😄 Glad you see value in this also.