Serving a modified asset-manifest.json in CRA using CRACO doesn't work - create-react-app

Question

I have just created a new CRA app. In our organization we have a micro frontend framework which has certain requirements when it comes to the the asset file of each micro frontend app. CRA will by default, create a asset-manifest.json file.
https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/blob/main/packages/react-scripts/config/webpack.config.js#L656
Now I need to change this file to assets.json and make some structural changes as well. To achieve this I use CRACO and add the WebpackManifestPlugin.
const ManifestPlugin = require('webpack-manifest-plugin');
module.exports = {
webpack: {
plugins: {
// tried removing CRA definition for ManifestPlugin.
// It worked, but had no impact on my problem
// remove: ['ManifestPlugin'],
add: [
new ManifestPlugin({
fileName: 'assets.json',
generate: (seed, files, entrypoints) => {
const js = [],
css = [];
files.forEach((file) => {
if (file.path.endsWith('.js') && file.isInitial) {
js.push({ value: file.path, type: 'entry' });
}
if (file.path.endsWith('.css') && file.isInitial) {
css.push({ value: file.path, type: 'entry' });
}
});
return { js, css };
},
})
]
}
}
};
Whenever I build the application, my new assets.json file is generated as expected.
However, I can't get CRA, or webpack-dev-server I assume, to serve this file while I run my CRA app in development mode. It only resolves to the index.html file. I have looked through CRA source code and can't really find any relevant place where asset-manifest.json is mentioned.
So how do I get webpack-dev-server to serve my assets.json file?

Answer 1

You need to add the ManifestPlugin to webpack.plugins.remove array to receive only the configuration from WebpackManifestPlugin:
...
webpack: {
alias: {},
plugins: {
add: [
new WebpackManifestPlugin(webpackManifestConfig)
],
remove: [
"ManifestPlugin"
],
},
configure: (webpackConfig, { env, paths }) => { return webpackConfig; }
},
...