To get a good setup in JS there’s a ton of things that are nativeish in other languages (at least via IDE) that are wholly exposed via the package management stuff. The upside of the configurability is you can mix and match, and build something that works great for your needs and your project. Different framework, different test system, different linter, different SQL wrapper, etc. The downside is that it’s overwhelming, even when experienced with it.

I would suggest starting with a bundle created by create-react-app - you will get most of the cool tooling out of the box, and discover the usefulness of some of the libraries.

Having a live loading web app is a really neat and productive way to develop - but getting there can be daunting.