# Setting up a simple React app with Parcel
This article is here so I can point my readers to it from other articles that require setting up a React environment.
## Installations
Before we get started, you'll need to install Node and npm or yarn and create a directory for your project. Then, install Parcel into your app:
```bash
mkdir react-modal
cd react-modal
npm init
npm install --save-dev parcel
```
Awesome, let's install React, Tailwindcss and Postcss.
```bash
npm install react react-dom
npm install -D tailwindcss postcss
npx tailwindcss init
```
*You may need to prepend these commands with* `sudo` *depending on your permissions.*
---
## Configs
Create a `.postcssrc` file in your project root, and enable the `tailwindcss` plugin.
```bash
touch .postcssrc
```
```javascript
{
"plugins": {
"tailwindcss": {}
}
}
```
Add the paths to all of your template files in your `tailwind.config.js` file.
```javascript
/** @type {import('tailwindcss').Config} */
module.exports = {
content: [
"./src/**/*.{html,js,ts,jsx,tsx}",
],
theme: {
extend: {},
},
plugins: [],
}
```
Create `./src/index.html`, `./src/index.js`, `./src/index.css` and `./src/App.js` files.
```bash
touch src/index.html
touch src/index.css
touch src/index.js
touch src/App.js
```
Add the `@tailwind` directives for each of Tailwind’s layers to the `index.css` file.
```css
@tailwind base;
@tailwind components;
@tailwind utilities;
```
---
## Boilerplates
Add the below markup to `index.html`
```xml
My Parcel App
```
In `index.js` create a React root and render the App component into the DOM.
```javascript
import { createRoot } from "react-dom/client";
import { App } from "./App";
import './index.css'
const container = document.getElementById("app");
const root = createRoot(container)
root.render();
```
In `App.js` create a simple component.
```javascript
export function App() {
return Hello world!
;
}
```
---
## Get it running
Finally, start your build process.
```bash
npx parcel src/index.html
```
In your browser, go to localhost:1234. If you see a large blue "Hello world" then you're all set!