SIMPLE WEBPACK 5 SETTINGS WITH CORRESPONDING package.json FOR REACT

package.json

{
  "name": "react-webpack-setup",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1",
    "react-dev": "webpack serve"
  },
  "keywords": [],
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC",
  "devDependencies": {
    "@babel/core": "^7.12.16",
    "@babel/plugin-proposal-class-properties": "^7.13.0",
    "@babel/preset-env": "^7.12.16",
    "@babel/preset-react": "^7.12.13",
    "babel-loader": "^8.2.2",
    "clean-webpack-plugin": "^3.0.0",
    "css-loader": "^5.0.2",
    "html-webpack-plugin": "^5.2.0",
    "sass-loader": "^11.0.1",
    "webpack": "^5.22.0",
    "webpack-cli": "^4.5.0",
    "webpack-dev-server": "^3.11.2"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "react": "^17.0.1",
    "react-dom": "^17.0.1"
  }
}

Webpack.config.js

const dev = process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'production' // Loads the environment that you're running on
const path = require('path');
const HtmlWebpackPlugin = require('html-webpack-plugin');
const {CleanWebpackPlugin} = require('clean-webpack-plugin');

module.exports = {
  mode:'development',
  devtool: dev ? 'inline-source-map': 'eval-source-map', // Maps the line numbers of jsx files to the ones in the bundle
  entry: path.join( __dirname, 'client/src/index.jsx'),
  module: { // All modules to be used in the app
    rules: [
      {
        test: [/\.(js|jsx)$/], // Regex for parsing both js and jsx files
        exclude: /node_modules/,
        use: {
          loader: 'babel-loader',
          options: {
            presets: ['@babel/preset-env', '@babel/preset-react'],
            plugins: ['@babel/plugin-proposal-class-properties'] // For class based react components
          }
        }
      },
      {
        test: /\.(woff(2)?|eot|ttf|otf|svg|)$/, // Regex for parsing all the font types
        type: 'asset/inline',
      },
      {
        test: /\.(scss|css)$/, // Regex for parsing css and sass files
        use: ['css-loader', 'sass-loader']
      },
      { 
        test: /\.(?:ico|gif|png|jpg|jpeg)$/i, // Regex for parsing image files
        type: 'asset/resource' 
      }, 
    ]
  },
  output: {
    filename: 'bundle.js',
    path: path.join(__dirname, 'client/dist/')
  },
  devServer: { // Serves the bundle for development
    contentBase: path.join(__dirname, 'client/dist'),
    compress: true,
    hot: true,
    port: 8080,
    writeToDisk: true // Makes the bundle available on disk. The serving happens in memory.
  },
  plugins:[
    new HtmlWebpackPlugin({ // Creates the required html file on every build
    title: 'React Webpack Boilerplate',
    inject: 'body',
    template: path.join(__dirname, 'client/src/template.html'), // Include your app's target node here.
    filename: 'index.html', // output file
  }),
  new CleanWebpackPlugin({ cleanStaleWebpackAssets: false }) // Cleans up all unwanted bundles
  ]
};

Check full repo here: react webpack setup

This mostly focussed on developing on the frontend