If you get here you should move on to: https://github.com/christianalfoni/webpack-express-boilerplate. It is the boilerplate from this article: http://www.christianalfoni.com/articles/2015_04_19_The-ultimate-webpack-setup. It is just a better setup :-)
An example of webpack workflow, as presented in the following article Creating a workflow with WebPack
npm installnpm run dev- localhost:8080npm run deploy- deploy to dist folder
@bebraw and me have been working on a cookbook for React JS and Webpack practices. Check it out at react-webpack-cookbook and build your custom config file with the best practices in the community.