Article 6: Folder Structure and Project Organization — Building for Growth

Learning Objectives

By the end of this article, you will:

• Organize React projects with professional folder structures that scale from hobby to enterprise size.
• Understand feature-driven and domain-driven architectures common in the industry.
• Learn best practices for co-locating files, separating concerns, and onboarding new developers with ease.
• Practice restructuring a real app for clarity, maintainability, and growth.

Why Does Structure Matter?

Imagine:

• Your app is a mini start-up today.
• Tomorrow, it needs a new chat feature—and a new developer joins the team.
• If your codebase is a “spaghetti plate,” adding features or hunting bugs becomes a nightmare.

A clear and logical structure saves hours (or days) of developer time, reduces onboarding headache, and is a hallmark of job-ready, industry-standard React teams everywhere.

Project Organization Patterns

1. The “Classic” Structure

Many generated React projects look like this:

/src
  /components
  /pages
  /utils
  /assets
  App.js
  index.js

• Good for very small projects.
• Can grow messy as component count explodes.

2. Feature-Based Structure (Recommended)

A structure where everything related to a single feature—UI, logic, tests, styles—is together.

/src
  /features
    /auth
      AuthForm.js
      authSlice.js
      authAPI.js
      AuthForm.test.js
      styles.module.css
    /products
      ProductList.js
      productAPI.js
      ProductList.test.js
  /components
    Button.js
    Modal.js
  /app
    store.js
    rootReducer.js
  /hooks
  /utils
  /assets

Why this rocks:

• You find everything for a feature in one place.
• Easily move or remove features.
• Supports parallel work and scaling.

3. Domain-Driven Structure (Very Large Projects)

Organize by business domain: /users, /orders, /dashboard, etc. Each domain can further contain components, hooks, API files, etc.

Co-locating Files: Keep What’s Related, Together

Instead of:

/components
  ProductCard.js
  ProductCard.css
/pages
  Shop.js
/tests
  ProductCard.test.js

Prefer:

/features/products
  ProductCard.js
  ProductCard.module.css
  ProductCard.test.js

• Makes maintenance and updates a breeze.
• No more clicking all over to track down related files.

Shared vs Feature Components

Feature Components live under /features/[featureName]. Shared or UI Components (generic buttons, modals, icons) live under /components. This encourages reuse without accidental cross-feature coupling.

Real-World Best Practices

• Flat is better than deep: Avoid nesting folders more than 3-4 deep.
• Consistent naming: Use PascalCase for files and folders.
• Index files for cleaner imports: Export public API of a folder via index.js.
• Separate business logic from UI: Keep API, state, and UI distinct.
• Documentation: Use README.md or comments for tricky folder contents.

Keeping Structure Clean as You Grow

• Start simple, reorganize when needed. Don’t over-engineer from day one.
• When adding a feature, put everything (UI, hook, API, test) in one folder.
• Archive/deprecate old features in a /legacy or /deprecated directory.

Tooling Support

• Many frameworks (Create React App, Vite, Next.js) give you a starter layout—customize as you grow.
• Some CLIs (like Nx, Turborepo) offer advanced, modular setups for huge monorepos.

Practice Exercises

1. Restructure:
   • Take a medium-sized project and reorganize it into a feature-based structure. Notice how navigating and editing becomes easier.
2. Add a Feature:
   • Build a /notifications feature from scratch. Co-locate the UI, logic, tests, and styles.
3. Index Export:
   • Create an index.js file for your /components folder that re-exports all Button, Modal, and Card components.

Project Idea

Professional Scenario: Imagine you’re working in a five-person team on an e-commerce site.

• Reorganize to support parallel development (/features/orders, /features/products, /features/users).
• Document folder purpose with a short README.md in /features.
• Practice onboarding by pairing up and having someone else add a feature without confusion.

Further Reading & Resources

• React docs: Project Structure
• Scalable React App Structure
• Bulletproof React (Github)
• Vercel: How to Structure Large Scale React Apps

Final Thoughts: Set the Stage for Growth & Teamwork

A well-organized codebase is an investment in your future self and your team. It turns onboarding from days into hours, and lets you add features without creating confusion. Start simple, evolve as you go, and your projects will be ready for any scale-up moment.

Next: You’ll add another industry-ready skill to your kit—**strong type safety with TypeScript—**ensuring your app runs smoothly not just today, but as it evolves and grows!