I Have Taken Over React Projects Without Standards. Here Is What That Actually Feels Like.

Every file looked slightly different.

Not wrong exactly. Just different. One component used arrow functions. The next used function declarations. State lived in hooks in some features and inline in the UI in others. Naming conventions shifted from folder to folder. Import patterns changed depending on who had last touched the file.

I asked for an introduction to the codebase. The answer was: you can see how it is done.

I could see how it was done. The problem was that it was done differently everywhere I looked.

What a codebase without standards actually feels like