The Simplest React Stack

Bootstrapping and State Management

I am in search of the simplest React Stack. It has to be future-proof and feature-packed, but most importantly it has to be a breeze to work with.

In this series I will look for easy-to-use solutions to implement a buffed version of the classic React TodoMVC. When I think I can achieve something simpler, I will create helper libraries myself. The following topics will be likely covered before the finale.

Bootstrapping

State Management

Routing

Styling

Networking

Testing

Hosting

The episodes will be short and … simple.

Bootstrapping and Bundling

Create React App is hard to beat here. It sets up a lot of hidden goodies with a few commands only.

npx create-react-app todos

cd todos

npm start

This creates an offline-first Progressive Web App with ES6+ support, auto-prefixed CSS and a watching dev server. Sooo much good tech in one sentence! Awesome.

You can test and build the code later with the npm test / npm run build commands. If your project outgrows Create React App, just execute npm run eject and take over control.