Babel not transpiling JSX from files above current directory - reactjs

Question

I have a monorepo set up with a file structure like:
/root
/-ProjectA
/-ProjectB
/-common
In /ProjectA, I have a React app which imports a file from /common. When I try to start it in the Webpack Dev Server, I get an error from Babel-Loader saying that there is a compilation error in the imported common file where the JSX starts.
If I move the common file into ProjectA and import from there, everything works fine so there is no problem in that specific file (plus it's a very simple contrived example at this point).
/common/index.js (this is the only files in this directory)
import React from 'react';
export default () => <span>Hello, World!</span>;
/ProjectA/index.js
import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import Hello from '../common';
const App = () => <div><Hello /></div>;
ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.querySelector('#root'));
/ProjectA/.babelrc
{
"presets": [
"#babel/preset-env",
"#babel/preset-react"
]
}
/ProjectA/webpack.config.js
{
test: /\.(js|jsx)$/,
exclude: /node_modules/,
include: [
path.resolve('.'),
path.resolve('../common'),
],
use: {
loader: 'babel-loader'
}
}
/ProjectA/package.json
{
"dependencies": {
"react": "^16.8.6",
"react-dom": "^16.8.6"
},
"devDependencies": {
"#babel/core": "^7.5.4",
"#babel/preset-env": "^7.5.4",
"#babel/preset-react": "^7.0.0",
"babel-loader": "^8.0.6",
"html-loader": "^0.5.5",
"html-webpack-plugin": "^3.2.0",
"webpack": "^4.35.3",
"webpack-cli": "^3.3.6",
"webpack-dev-server": "^3.7.2"
}
}
Why is babel unable to transpile files from outside the current directory? Is there a way around this or a problem in my configs maybe?

Answer 1

Add this line to webpack.config.js
devServer: { contentBase: path.join(__dirname, "public") }
add this script to package.json
"scripts":{
"dev-server": "webpack-dev-server",
}
config.webpack.js(without styling loaders)
module.exports = {
entry: './src/app.js',
output: {
path: path.join(__dirname, 'public'),
filename: 'bundle.js'
},
module: {
rules: [{
loader: 'babel-loader',
test: /\.js$/,
exclude: /node_modules/
},
devtool: 'cheap-module-eval-source-map',
devServer: {
contentBase: path.join(__dirname, 'public')
}
};
now this command should run your app.
npm run dev-server