Find What You Need 🔍 How to Structure Your React Projects

published by Jens-Uwe Lössl on 9/14/2024

Why Project Structure Matters

Before diving into the ‘how,’ let’s define the ‘why.’ A well-structured React project enhances code readability, scalability, and maintainability. It serves as a roadmap for developers, making it easier to locate files, implement new features, and maintain consistency across the codebase.

Your project structure should communicate architecture decisions, align with your team’s workflow, and scale with your application’s complexity.

Keep It Simple at First

The React team advises against overcomplicating project structures. When starting a small project, focus on getting things done. You can always refactor and restructure as your app grows.

Adopting an incremental approach allows your architecture to evolve naturally. As patterns emerge and certain features expand, you’ll recognize the right moments to introduce more structure.

Scaling in a Business Context

In a business setting, long-term maintainability is critical. Consider the following factors when structuring your project:

  • Testing requirements and strategy
  • Team experience and growth potential
  • State management complexity
  • Need for a design system

Align your structure with business terminology. If your design team follows Atomic Design, reflect that in your component organization. If your requirements follow an event-driven model, consider Flux or a similar architecture.

Core Parts of a React Project

Most business applications consist of these core elements:

  • Routing
  • Pages
  • UI components
  • Backend communication
  • Business logic (e.g., validation, access control)
  • State management

A good project structure functions like a map, helping developers navigate these elements while maintaining clear boundaries.

Feature Slices

A feature slice groups all necessary components, logic, and state management for a specific feature into a single directory. This approach makes it easy to locate related code but can limit reusability.

Advantages: This structure keeps everything related to a feature in one place, making it easier to develop and maintain. It also helps teams work in parallel without interfering with unrelated features.

Tradeoffs: If features share a lot of logic, duplication may become an issue. It may also be difficult to determine where shared components or utilities should reside.

Architecture-Based Organization

You can structure your project by architecture you decided on. E.g.Clean architecture structures projects into four primary layers, each with a clear responsibility:

  • Presentation Layer: Contains UI components, views, and routing.
  • Application Layer: Contains mapping between your use cases and view models.
  • Domain Layer: Contains business entities and use cases logic.
  • Infrastructure Layer: Handles API communication, databases, and external services.

Advantages: This structure promotes separation of concerns, making it easier to test and maintain. It also enhances scalability and allows for clear ownership of business logic.

Tradeoffs: It introduces additional complexity, especially in small projects where simpler structures might suffice. There may also be a learning curve for teams unfamiliar with clean architecture.

Handling Shared Logic

Avoid generic helpers folders where possible. Instead, if a shared module emerges, consider isolating it as a separate package.

For instance, I maintain a React Observable Tools package containing reusable hooks for integrating RxJS with React. This was extracted from a project to separate my relevant business logic from the logic to make the architecture work.

Final Thoughts

Your project structure should evolve with your application size, requirements, and team experience. Start simple and refine as needed.

Prioritize clean, maintainable code and follow principles like the Single Responsibility Principle. A thoughtful structure will help future-proof your project, making it easier to scale and adapt to new requirements.