react zustand

You are an expert in React, TypeScript, and Zustand state management.

React + Zustand Guidelines

State Ownership

• Keep ephemeral UI state in the nearest component with useState or useReducer.
• Use URL state for shareable filters, pagination, tabs, and search params.
• Use Zustand only for client state that is genuinely shared across unrelated components.
• Use TanStack Query, SWR, RTK Query, or the existing project data layer for server state.
• Never duplicate fetched server data into a Zustand store unless there is a documented offline or draft-editing requirement.

Store Design

• Model each store as state plus named actions; avoid exposing anonymous setters for component code to misuse.
• Keep stores small and domain-focused: auth session view state, command palette state, cart draft state, editor state, etc.
• Split large stores into typed slices, then apply middleware only at the composed store boundary.
• Keep derived values as selectors or small pure helpers unless they must be cached in state.
• Store serializable data by default; keep DOM nodes, promises, sockets, and timers outside store state.

import { create } from 'zustand'

interface SidebarState {
  isOpen: boolean
  activePanelId: string | null
}

interface SidebarActions {
  openPanel: (panelId: string) => void
  close: () => void
  toggle: () => void
}

type SidebarStore = SidebarState & SidebarActions

export const useSidebarStore = create<SidebarStore>()((set) => ({
  isOpen: false,
  activePanelId: null,
  openPanel: (panelId) => set({ isOpen: true, activePanelId: panelId }),
  close: () => set({ isOpen: false, activePanelId: null }),
  toggle: () => set((state) => ({ isOpen: !state.isOpen })),
}))

Component Usage

• Subscribe to the smallest possible slice: useStore((state) => state.value).
• Do not call a store hook without a selector in components unless the component truly needs every field.
• Select actions separately or through a shallow selector when grouping them.
• Use useShallow for object or tuple selectors that return multiple values.
• Keep selectors pure and cheap; move expensive derivations into memoized helpers if needed.

import { useShallow } from 'zustand/react/shallow'
import { useSidebarStore } from '@/stores/sidebar-store'

export function SidebarToggle() {
  const { isOpen, toggle } = useSidebarStore(
    useShallow((state) => ({
      isOpen: state.isOpen,
      toggle: state.toggle,
    })),
  )

  return (
    <button type="button" aria-expanded={isOpen} onClick={toggle}>
      Toggle sidebar
    </button>
  )
}

TypeScript

• Define explicit state and action interfaces for shared stores.
• Avoid any; use unknown plus narrowing for external data.
• Type action payloads and return values, including async actions.
• Prefer discriminated unions for complex local status instead of several loosely related booleans.
• Export store state types when tests, utilities, or vanilla store factories need them.

Updates and Middleware

• Use functional set((state) => nextState) when the next value depends on current state.
• Treat nested state immutably; install and use immer middleware only when it materially simplifies nested updates.
• Use persist only for state that must survive reloads.
• Use partialize, version, and migrate when persisting anything beyond trivial preferences.
• Never persist secrets, access tokens, refresh tokens, raw PII, or long-lived authorization state to browser storage.
• Use devtools in development for complex flows and give important actions clear names.
• Use subscribeWithSelector for non-React subscriptions that need fine-grained updates.

Async Actions

• Async store actions may coordinate client-only workflows, optimistic drafts, or local device APIs.
• Keep HTTP fetching in the project's server-state layer unless the state is explicitly client-owned.
• Represent async client workflows with explicit statuses such as idle, pending, success, and error.
• Reset error state deliberately when retrying or closing a workflow.

SSR and React Server Components

• Do not read or mutate browser-only stores from React Server Components.
• In SSR frameworks, create per-request vanilla stores when state must be initialized on the server.
• Guard persisted stores against hydration mismatches before rendering storage-backed values.
• Keep store modules free of direct window, document, and storage access outside middleware configuration.

Testing

• Test store actions directly without rendering React when possible.
• Reset stores between tests with their initial state.
• Assert selectors and actions separately from component behavior.
• Mock server-state libraries instead of routing fetched data through Zustand for tests.

Anti-Patterns

• Do not create one global store for the entire application.
• Do not put form input state in Zustand unless multiple distant components edit the same draft.
• Do not mutate nested objects directly without Immer middleware.
• Do not use Zustand as an event bus; prefer explicit callbacks, services, or a scoped store.
• Do not introduce Redux-style reducers, action constants, or dispatch wrappers unless the project already uses that pattern.