React + Node API Demo

A small full-stack starter with a React client and an Express server. The client calls the server's JSON endpoint and shows whether the API is reachable.

Project structure

• node-project/server — Express API on port 3001 by default
• node-project/client/client — Vite + React client on port 5173

Run locally

Use Node.js 18 or newer. Open two terminals from the repository root.

Start the API:

cd node-project
npm install
npm start

Start the client in development mode:

cd node-project/client/client
npm install
npm run dev

The Vite development server proxies /api requests to http://localhost:3001. Visit http://localhost:5173 to see the connection status.

API

GET /api returns:

{
  "message": "Hello from Express",
  "service": "react-node-app",
  "status": "ok"
}

Set the server port with the PORT environment variable. Build the client from node-project/client/client with npm run build. The development proxy is local-only; configure a production web server to forward /api requests to Express.