Webpack Dev Server with react & SSR

Question

I'm trying to build a dev server with webpack-dev-server using our own SSR architecture. This means our bundle compiles the react, and the server uses React.RenderToStaticMarkup to generate the HTML string. This is my webpack-dev-server config:

      {
        port: 5001,
        open: true,
        static: `${config.distDir}`,
        client: {
          overlay: {
            warnings: true,
            errors: true,
          },
          progress: true,
        },
        devMiddleware: {
          writeToDisk: true,
        },

Both the overlay and the progress properties don't seem to work at all, I do get compilation errors in the terminal, but nothing in the browser.

Since I'm doing dynamic SSR, this means the bundle generates a JS file and the server uses React.renderToStaticMarkup for generating the html string.

Can this setup even work with the dev server? What do I need to do to have the overlay and progress show in the browser?