A minimal React project template which combines:

• react-router-component to provide HTML5 History routing and navigation

• react-async to create "asynchronous" React components

• express to serve pre-rendered React components, assets and provide API

• browserify to provide module system for a browser

• npm to install and manage server-side and client-side dependencies

Every "page" in the application is pre-rendered on server so the user can see the UI before the client code is shipped to a browser. After that application starts functioning like a single page application, navigating between "pages" without reloads.

Project structure is really minimal, you'd probably like to customize it for your specific needs and taste:

.
├── assets
├── client.js
├── package.json
└── server.js

Directory assets is served under /assets URL, client.js module contains UI code while server.js — HTTP server which serves pre-rendered React components, assets and provide a stub for a REST API.

After cloning a git repo, run:

% npm install

to install all needed dependencies and then:

% npm run start

to start a development server.

Now you can start edit the source code — on changes, server will be reloaded and client code bundle will be rebuilt.

To build an optimized bundle of client code run:

% npm run build

which will produce assets/bundle.js build, then:

% npm run start-prod

to start server in "production" mode (no source code watching and serving optimized bundle to browser).