Unable to fetch json file via axios from local project root

I’m using React with Typescript and Webpack 5, served with webpack-dev-server. My project structure is as follows:

Project
 |-src
 | |-(All my code)
 |-app.config.json

I keep my backend URLs in a “app.config” file that’s located in the root directory and I need to read it somehow. Since it’s possible that it will change in runtime as I debug different servers, I’d like it to be loaded dynamically and I tried doing so via axios as axios.get('/app.config.json')

However, this results in a 404 Not Found error. Moreover, if I go directly by the address localhost:8080/app.config.json it will not be there either, as if not included at all when serving. Do I need to somehow include this file in webpack config?

I’d like to add that I would greatly prefer to keep the method of loading this file as axios from the root directory (not in /public, etc.) unless there’s absolutely no fix as other projects in my org follow this pattern and this particular one just doesn’t work after updating to wp5 for some reason.