Browsing the web I found a series of tutorials by Robin Wieruch on setting up a modern javascript project, starting here: [https://www.robinwieruch.de/javascript-project-setup-tutorial/]
They seemed clear and lucid. Most interestingly, the tutorials interlocked, forming alternative pathways through to developing either a backend or frontend project.
Robin made finished code public as git repos (for example here), but I thought it might be fun and educational to take advantage of git branching to show how his front and backend pathways branch off a common base.
In this repo we have three branches: base, backend and front end. I have followed Robin's tuts up to the point just before including either express.js (on backend) or react (on frontend).