So you want to make a React Hello World and feel like a frontend wizard without summoning ancient dependencies or crying into your terminal. Good news React is mercifully beginner friendly and this guide gets you from zero to a tiny working app using Node and VS Code.

What you will need

• Node and npm installed and working on your machine. Check with node -v and npm -v
• A terminal you can tolerate and VS Code for editing
• A browser to open http //localhost 3000 when the dev server is up

Create the project

Pick a scaffolder and let it do the heavy lifting so you can get back to styling that button that will never be clicked.

npx create-react-app hello-world

or if you want something leaner

npm create vite@latest hello-world

Either command scaffolds folders and installs dependencies so you can focus on components and JavaScript glamor.

Open the project in VS Code

Open the new folder in VS Code and install a couple of helpful extensions if you like being productive instead of guessing closing tags. Recommended picks are a React snippet pack and ESLint for warnings that try to be helpful.

Edit the App component

Open src/App.js or src/App.jsx and replace the placeholder with a tiny functional component. Keep it simple and modern with JSX.

export default function App() {
  return (
    

      
Hello World from React
    
  )
}

This uses a functional component which is the standard for modern React development and works well for a beginner tutorial.

Run the development server

Start the dev server with the script generated by your scaffolder. For create react app and many templates the command is

npm start

Then open your browser at http //localhost 3000 and enjoy instant reload so your edits show up like magic or like very fast incremental effort.

Quick debugging tips

• If the page is blank check the terminal for build errors and the browser console for runtime exceptions
• Make sure your Node version meets React requirements if dependencies fail to install
• If live reload is not working try stopping and restarting the dev server or clearing the browser cache

Where to go next

Now that you have a minimal React Hello World app you can explore components props state and styles and grow this tiny project into real frontend work. Use this React tutorial as a launchpad for learning more JavaScript patterns and modern web development practices.

If you get stuck use the browser dev tools console and the terminal output to diagnose issues and remember that every bug is a lesson wrapped in mild frustration.