.babelrc ignores babel settings in package.json

There are three ways to provide babel configuration listed on the usage page for babelrc. You can provide a .babelrc file, you can place a babel section in your package.json or you can declare configuration with an env option.

If you have both a .babelrc in your root dir AND a babel section in your package.json file then the settings in the package.json will be completely ignored.

This happened to me when needing to declare an extra plugin for babel that create-react-app did not provide. I ejected from create-react-app, I added a .babelrc that declared the extra plugin, and this broke the build for my app. The babel configuration for an ejected create-react-app is in the package.json file.