React TypeScript Project Structure: Best Practices for 2025

Why Project Structure Matters

A well-structured React TypeScript project is easy to navigate, test, and extend. A poorly structured one becomes a maze where finding the right file takes longer than writing the code. The goal of structure is to minimize the time between 'I need to change X' and 'I know exactly which file to open.' Here is the structure I use on all my production projects.

The Feature-Based Folder Structure

Organize by feature, not by type. Instead of /components, /hooks, /utils (which grow into unmanageable catch-alls), use /features/auth, /features/blog, /features/dashboard. Each feature folder contains its own components, hooks, types, and utils. Shared code lives in /shared or /common. This co-location makes it easy to understand what belongs together and safe to delete an entire feature.

TypeScript Configuration for React

Use strict mode in tsconfig.json: strict: true enables strictNullChecks, noImplicitAny, and strictFunctionTypes. Set baseUrl and paths for clean imports (import Button from '@/shared/Button' instead of '../../../shared/Button'). Enable noUncheckedIndexedAccess to catch array access bugs. Use skipLibCheck: true to skip checking node_modules types for faster builds.

Type Patterns for React Components

Use React.FC sparingly — it implicitly includes children which you may not want. Instead, define props explicitly: type ButtonProps = { label: string; onClick: () => void; variant?: 'primary' | 'ghost' }. For components that accept children, use React.PropsWithChildren<ButtonProps> or explicitly type children: React.ReactNode. Use discriminated unions for components with fundamentally different states.

API Layer and Data Fetching Types

Define your API response types in a /types/api.ts file. Use generics for paginated responses: type PaginatedResponse<T> = { data: T[]; total: number; page: number }. Use Zod for runtime validation of API responses — parse the response with a Zod schema at the API boundary so TypeScript types are guaranteed to match what the server actually returns, not just what you expect.

Tooling: ESLint, Prettier, and Path Aliases

Install eslint-plugin-react-hooks to enforce the Rules of Hooks and catch stale closure bugs. Install @typescript-eslint/eslint-plugin for TypeScript-specific rules. Use Prettier with eslint-config-prettier so formatting and linting don't conflict. Add lint-staged + Husky to run ESLint and TypeScript type checking on every commit. A codebase that enforces these automatically stays clean without relying on discipline.