Is it possible to select a React version to install?

[OrderAndCh4oS]

I need a quick React 16 project to test some stuff out, is there a quick way to run up an npx create-react-app with a specific version and typescript templates?

[ChristianMurphy]

CRA does not provide an option to specify the react version.
You may be able to spin up a previous version of CRA to get an older React version (for example npx create-react-app@3 create-react-app application-name)

[OrderAndCh4oS]

That'll explain why I couldn't find it, thanks for letting me know.

This npx create-react-app@3 create-react-app application-name created a project in a create-react-app directory.

So I tried npx create-react-app@3 create-react-app react-16 this gave me a project with the package.json shown below.

{
  "name": "react-16",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "private": true,
  "dependencies": {
    "@testing-library/jest-dom": "^5.11.4",
    "@testing-library/react": "^11.1.0",
    "@testing-library/user-event": "^12.1.10",
    "react": "^17.0.1",
    "react-dom": "^17.0.1",
    "react-scripts": "4.0.0",
    "web-vitals": "^0.2.4"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "start": "react-scripts start",
    "build": "react-scripts build",
    "test": "react-scripts test",
    "eject": "react-scripts eject"
  },
  "eslintConfig": {
    "extends": [
      "react-app",
      "react-app/jest"
    ]
  },
  "browserslist": {
    "production": [
      ">0.2%",
      "not dead",
      "not op_mini all"
    ],
    "development": [
      "last 1 chrome version",
      "last 1 firefox version",
      "last 1 safari version"
    ]
  }
}

[ChristianMurphy]

Ah, looks like it will always lookup/grab latest react

create-react-app/packages/create-react-app/createReactApp.js

Lines 358 to 418 in 8f03b91

	function install(root, useYarn, usePnp, dependencies, verbose, isOnline) {
	return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
	let command;
	let args;
	if (useYarn) {
	command = 'yarnpkg';
	args = ['add', '--exact'];
	if (!isOnline) {
	args.push('--offline');
	}
	if (usePnp) {
	args.push('--enable-pnp');
	}
	[].push.apply(args, dependencies);
	// Explicitly set cwd() to work around issues like
	// https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/issues/3326.
	// Unfortunately we can only do this for Yarn because npm support for
	// equivalent --prefix flag doesn't help with this issue.
	// This is why for npm, we run checkThatNpmCanReadCwd() early instead.
	args.push('--cwd');
	args.push(root);
	if (!isOnline) {
	console.log(chalk.yellow('You appear to be offline.'));
	console.log(chalk.yellow('Falling back to the local Yarn cache.'));
	console.log();
	}
	} else {
	command = 'npm';
	args = [
	'install',
	'--save',
	'--save-exact',
	'--loglevel',
	'error',
	].concat(dependencies);
	if (usePnp) {
	console.log(chalk.yellow("NPM doesn't support PnP."));
	console.log(chalk.yellow('Falling back to the regular installs.'));
	console.log();
	}
	}
	if (verbose) {
	args.push('--verbose');
	}
	const child = spawn(command, args, { stdio: 'inherit' });
	child.on('close', code => {
	if (code !== 0) {
	reject({
	command: `${command} ${args.join(' ')}`,
	});
	return;
	}
	resolve();
	});
	});
	}

An alternative would be to edit the generated package.json with a specific version.