finds.dev← search

// the find

rwieruch/minimal-react-webpack-babel-setup

★ 848 · JavaScript · updated Feb 2022

The minimal React, Webpack, Babel Setup. You want to get beyond create-react-app?

A minimal React 16 starter wired up with Webpack 5, Babel 7, and hot module replacement, meant to accompany Robin Wieruch's tutorial. It suits developers who want to see every piece of a React build before reaching for create-react-app.

- The whole project is small enough to read in one sitting: one webpack config, one .babelrc, and two source files, with no generated scaffolding to wade through.

- It targets Webpack 5 and Babel 7 rather than the Webpack 4 generation the topic tags still advertise, so the config is closer to what current tooling expects.

- The optional extras (ESLint, CSS Modules, Docker, fonts, images) are split into separate write-ups, so you add only the pieces you need instead of inheriting them by default.

- The last push was in February 2022 and it pins React 16, so anyone starting today begins on an old React version and a lockfile that will not reflect later security advisories.

- The Travis CI badge points at travis-ci.org, which has been retired, so the build status shown is not a live check.

- There is no linter, test runner, or type checking in the base setup beyond a .prettierrc, so the first thing you do after cloning is add the tooling the repo leaves out.

- Without the tutorial, the README gives three install commands and says little about why the config is shaped the way it is, so it works best as a companion to the article rather than on its own.

View on GitHub → Homepage ↗

// want more like this?

We dig through GitHub every week and send a few repos picked for what you actually care about — each with an honest take like this one.

Get finds in your inbox → Search again →