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Challenge 01 — Project Setup & Dev Tooling

Concept

Every React project begins with tooling decisions. The ecosystem has evolved significantly: Create React App is deprecated, and Vite is the modern standard for fast, reliable React development. Getting the foundation right — TypeScript strictness, folder structure, and HMR — sets the tone for everything that follows.

Learning Objectives

  • Initialize a React + TypeScript project using Vite
  • Configure tsconfig.json with strict: true and understand what that enables
  • Establish a scalable folder structure for a real application
  • Verify Hot Module Replacement (HMR) is working correctly
  • Replace generated boilerplate with intentional, semantic markup

Starting Snapshot

The start/ directory contains a pre-scaffolded Vite + React + TypeScript project so you can npm install && npm run dev immediately. The steps below describe how that project was created — follow along to understand each decision, or try it yourself in a scratch directory.

The Challenge

Step 1 — Scaffold the Project

Use Vite to create a new React + TypeScript project:

npm create vite@latest .
npm install

When prompted, select React and then TypeScript.

Step 2 — Verify TypeScript Strict Mode

Open tsconfig.json (or tsconfig.app.json) and confirm "strict": true is set. If it is not, add it under compilerOptions. Strict mode enables:

  • strictNullChecks — no implicit null or undefined
  • noImplicitAny — all variables must have inferrable types
  • strictFunctionTypes — stricter function type checking
  • And several others that catch real bugs at compile time

Step 3 — Establish Folder Structure

Create the following directories inside src/:

src/
  components/    # Reusable UI components
  hooks/         # Custom React hooks
  types/         # Shared TypeScript type definitions
  utils/         # Pure utility/helper functions
  assets/        # Static assets (images, fonts, icons)

Add a .gitkeep file to each empty directory so Git tracks them:

touch src/components/.gitkeep
touch src/hooks/.gitkeep
touch src/types/.gitkeep
touch src/utils/.gitkeep
touch src/assets/.gitkeep

Step 4 — Replace the Boilerplate

Replace src/App.tsx with a clean TaskFlow layout. The rendered output must include:

  • A heading: TaskFlow
  • A subtitle: Project Management, Simplified.
  • A footer: Built with React + TypeScript

Use semantic HTML elements (<header>, <main>, <footer>).

Step 5 — Verify Everything Works

npm run dev     # Dev server starts, HMR active
npm run build   # Zero TypeScript errors, zero warnings

Make a small edit to App.tsx while npm run dev is running and confirm the browser updates without a full page reload — that is HMR working.

Acceptance Criteria

  • npm run dev starts successfully and the app renders in the browser
  • npm run build completes with zero errors
  • tsconfig.json or tsconfig.app.json has "strict": true
  • The rendered page shows the heading "TaskFlow"
  • The rendered page shows the subtitle "Project Management, Simplified."
  • The rendered page shows the footer "Built with React + TypeScript"
  • Semantic HTML is used (<header>, <main>, <footer>)
  • Folder structure matches: components/, hooks/, types/, utils/, assets/
  • No any types in any .ts or .tsx file

Critical Gotchas

Select the right variant. When running npm create vite@latest interactively, you must choose "React" then "TypeScript" (not "TypeScript + SWC" if you want standard Babel).

Keep tsconfig.node.json. Vite generates two tsconfig files: tsconfig.app.json for your source code and tsconfig.node.json for the Vite config file itself. Do not delete tsconfig.node.json — it is required for vite.config.ts to type-check correctly.

Keep vite-env.d.ts. The file src/vite-env.d.ts contains /// <reference types="vite/client" />. This is what gives you type definitions for import.meta.env and other Vite-specific globals. Deleting it breaks those types.

tsconfig.json is a composite root. In Vite's template, the top-level tsconfig.json uses "references" to point at tsconfig.app.json and tsconfig.node.json. It does not have compilerOptions of its own. The strict settings live in tsconfig.app.json.

Project Structure After Completion

01-project-setup/
  index.html
  vite.config.ts
  tsconfig.json
  tsconfig.app.json
  tsconfig.node.json
  package.json
  src/
    main.tsx
    App.tsx
    App.css
    index.css
    vite-env.d.ts
    components/
    hooks/
    types/
    utils/
    assets/
  public/