Colocation keeps related code close together. In React, that usually means placing a component’s JSX and styles in the same file or folder rather than scattering styles across a central stylesheet. The goal is faster understanding and maintenance, especially as teams and codebases grow. section 7.1.2
Colocation shapes practical implementation decisions:
- Improves unfamiliar-component maintenance by keeping the rules affecting an element nearby. section 7.1.2
- Reduces the coordination burden of a single, very large stylesheet shared by many developers. section 7.1.2
- Styled-components extends the pattern with colocated styles, managed specificity, ordered extensions, short selectors, and JavaScript-driven calculations. section 7.5.4
- Full-stack React frameworks apply colocation across layers by joining database-driven backend work and rendered frontend output in one application. section 11.1
Component-local styling
A React component keeps its JSX and styling together, or stores both in the same folder. With styled-components, the styling remains beside the elements it affects instead of moving to a distant central CSS file. section 7.1.2 section 7.5.4
