Why don't they provide a good working example, using Browser Sync or LiveReload, Sass, etc ?
I haven't found a good build process using npm as a task manager or build tool; I haven't seen any good example on any article I've read so far; gulp was built for, and it's much clear in my opinion!
The article mentions two good working examples that do everything you mentioned and more:
https://github.com/coryhouse/react-slingshot https://github.com/kriasoft/react-starter-kit