How do I handle API errors consistently in React?
Centralize error handling in an axios interceptor that catches errors, normalizes them to one shape, and optionally shows a toast. Components then handle one error shape instead of each parsing errors differently.
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More FAQs in How to Connect a React Frontend to a Node Backend
Set the API URL in environment variables, use fetch or axios to call REST APIs, centralize all API calls in one folder, attach the JWT with an axios interceptor for protected endpoints, handle loading and errors consistently, and configure CORS on the backend.
Either works. axios is popular for its interceptors (useful for auth and error handling), automatic JSON parsing, and cleaner error handling. fetch is built into the browser but needs more manual setup. Choose based on your needs.
So the API surface is easy to find, change, and mock in tests. Scattering fetch calls across components makes the API hard to manage and mocks hard to write. A central api folder keeps it organized.
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