Creating a React app toolchain from scratch

When starting a new React project, developers can choose from various toolchains like create-react-app, Next, or Gatsby, each offering different benefits and complexities. However, for smaller projects, it's feasible to build a custom lightweight toolchain using essential packages such as Parcel for bundling, ESLint and Prettier for linting and formatting, Babel for transpiling, and fetch for data fetching. This approach allows for a deeper understanding of the build process and flexibility in adding more sophisticated tools as needed. By setting up a bespoke toolchain, developers gain insight into the underlying mechanics of React applications and can tailor their development environment to their specific needs without relying on preconfigured solutions. The custom toolchain setup includes basic configurations for styling with CSS, SCSS, or styled-components, and demonstrates how to incorporate data fetching and user component rendering, encouraging developers to explore additional tools like routing and form management as they grow more comfortable with React's ecosystem.