How to Structure a React Application

The folder structure and component patterns that survive a growing team and codebase.

React gives you complete freedom in how you organize your code. That freedom is a trap for teams that dont make the decision intentionally. This guide covers the feature-based structure and component hierarchy that keeps React applications maintainable past the 10,000-line mark.

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Feature-Based vs Type-Based Folder Structure

The most common React structure mistake: organizing by type (components/ hooks/ utils/ pages/) instead of by feature. Type-based structure works fine for 10 components. At 50, youre scrolling through 40 files to find everything related to one feature. Feature-based structure: src/features/auth/, src/features/dashboard/ - each containing its own components, hooks, types, and API calls. Co-location makes deletion and refactoring trivial.

At Valletta Software, we focus on:

Feature folders: src/features/{name}/components/ hooks/ api/ types/ index.ts barrel

Shared: src/components/ for truly reusable UI src/hooks/ for cross-feature logic only

State placement: server state in React Query server state client state as close as possible to usage

API layer: src/api/ or per-feature api.ts with typed request/response - no raw fetch() in components

Route structure: file-based (Next.js) or React Router with lazy-loaded feature chunks

Testing: co-located test files not a separate /tests root folder

Barrel exports: index.ts per feature - import from features/auth not deep paths

The Component Hierarchy That Stays Clean

Three layers: page feature UI. Strict separation prevents spaghetti.

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UI components: pure no business logic no API calls fully prop-driven - think design system

Feature components: compose UI components plus hooks handle business logic own local state

Page components: route-level compose feature components handle navigation and layout

Custom hooks: extract logic from components testable in isolation no JSX returned

Context: for auth theme locale - not for feature state (use Zustand or RTK for that)

TypeScript: strict mode no any all props typed - non-negotiable at team scale

Storybook: for UI components only - document and test in isolation before integration

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How to Structure a React Application - With Engineers Who've Scaled It

Our React engineers apply feature-based structure from the first PR. Not the fifth refactor.

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Our React engineers apply feature-based folder structure, typed API layers, and co-located tests from the first PR.

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