Synergies

Create a performant distributed context state for React and compose reusable state logic.

Find out more at synergies.js.org!

synergies is a tiny (~3kB), yet powerful state management library for React. It allows you to specify small state atoms, that you can combine into Synergies of multiple atoms that define shared state logic. Features include

• Distributed state: You can inject individual atoms at multiple arbitrary points in your component hierarchy. This allows you to both define unique global state logic in your application root, and smaller reusable components that have their own context-based state. Your state logic can not only read and write to the atoms provided by the closest provider, but to all atoms provided upwards in the component hierarchy.
• Immutable update logic: synergies uses immer to provide drafts of your state in your update handlers, so you can more easily update state.
• Performant update-triggers: Even though a synergy provider can provide several atoms and can access any atoms from other providers upwards the hierarchy, calling update logic will only trigger updates on components that read from atoms that were actually changed. Again immer is used to let you update drafts of your state, and smartly detects which atoms were actually changed and which ones were only read from during the update.
• Asynchronous update logic: No more thunk plugins! Update handlers can be asynchronous, and you can even manually trigger updates on certain atoms while still being in the middle of the update handler.
• Reusable state logic: Since you can provide atom state rather low down in the hierarchy, you can reuse small pieces of state between components, while still maintaining more global parts of your app state farther up in the component hierarchy.
• Typed: Full type safety for everything.
• Tiny package: 3kB + immer. Use it for your global app state, or just replace small context providers with synergies to simplify your codebase and speed up your state.

Usage

Get started by installing the library:

yarn add synergies immer

Create your first state atoms:

const valueAtom = createAtom("");
const isInitialStateAtom = createAtom(true);

Synergyze your atoms to create React Hooks:

const useSetValue = createSynergy(valueAtom, isInitialStateAtom).createAction(
  (newValue: string) => (valueDraft, isInitialStateDraft) => {
    // Components that read from the value atom will be updated.
    valueDraft.current = newValue;
    
    if (isInitialStateDraft.current) {
      // If isInitialState is already false, then the draft will not be updated,
      // and components that read from it will not trigger a rerender.
      isInitialStateDraft.current = false;
    }
  }
);

// Every atom is also a synergy of itself, so we can call `createSelector` also on atoms.
const useValue = valueAtom.createSelector(value => value);
const useIsInitialState = isInitialStateAtom.useValue; // shortcut for directly reading atom state

Provide your atoms:

<SynergyProvider atoms={[valueAtom, isInitialStateAtom]}>
  {/* Components that consume value and isInitialState... */}

  {/* We can also nest other synergy providers */}
  <SynergyProvider atoms={[moreLocalizedAtom]}>
    {/* Can read from and write to all three atoms. */}
  </SynergyProvider>
  
  {/* Reuse providers with more localized state */}
  <SynergyProvider atoms={[moreLocalizedAtom]}>
    {/* ... */}
  </SynergyProvider>
</SynergyProvider>

Use your hooks:

const Component = () => {
  const setValue = useSetValue();
  const value = useValue();
  return (
    <input 
      value={value}
      onChange={e => setValue(e.target.value)}
    />
  )
}

You can find more examples and details at synergies.js.org!

More advanced examples

Async update logic

synergies supports asynchronous update actions. You can also trigger atoms in the middle of an update handler, so that their subscribers get rerendered before the action has completed.

This is shown in the following example, where an API fetch call is dispatched in a action handler. The isLoading atom is updated to true immediately when the fetch is dispatched, while the update call continues to load the data from the server. Components reading the isLoading atom will be rerendered immediately. Once the data has loaded, we update the data atom with the fetched result, and update the isLoading atom is updated to false, triggering rerenders of all components that read from either the data or the isLoading atom.

Note that, if the isLoading atom would not rerender a second time at the end, only components subscribing to the data atom would be rerendered.

const isLoadingAtom = createAtom(false);
const dataAtom = createAtom(null);

// Async update handler
const useFetchData = createSynergy(dataAtom, isLoadingAtom).createAction(
  () => async (data, isLoading) => {
    isLoading.current = true;
    
    // Trigger rerenders of all components that read from the `isLoading` atom.
    // The `isLoading` draft will be discarded, so we need to use the new one
    // that the `trigger` method returns.
    isLoading = isLoading.trigger();
    
    const res = await fetch("https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/pokemon/pikachu");
    
    // Update the `data` and `isLoading` atoms
    data.current = await res.json();
    isLoading.current = false;
  }
);

// For simplicity, read from both atoms at once
const usePokemonData = createSynergy(dataAtom, isLoadingAtom).createSelector(
  (data, isLoading) => ({ data, isLoading })
);

export const Example = () => {
  const { data, isLoading } = usePokemonData();
  const fetchData = useFetchData();
  const resetData = useReset();
  return !data && !isLoading ? (
    <Button onClick={fetchData}>Load Pokemon</Button>
  ) : isLoading ? (
    <div>Loading...</div>
  ) : (
    <div>
      {data.name} has a height of {data.height} and the abilities{" "}
      {data.abilities.map(({ ability }) => ability.name).join(", ")}
    </div>
  );
};

Nested synergy providers

// ---------------------
// Atoms
// ---------------------
const filterAtom = createAtom(false);
const itemsAtom = createAtom([
  { todo: "First Todo", checked: true },
  { todo: "Second Todo", checked: false },
  { todo: "Third Todo", checked: false },
]);
const inputValueAtom = createAtom("");

// ---------------------
// Selectors and state actions
// ---------------------
const useFilteredItems = createSynergy(itemsAtom, filterAtom).createSelector(
  (items, filter) => items.filter(({ checked }) => !filter || checked)
);

const useAddTodo = createSynergy(itemsAtom, inputValueAtom).createAction(
  () => (items, input) => {
    items.current.push({ todo: input.current, checked: false });
    input.current = "";
  }
);

const useToggleTodo = itemsAtom.createAction((id: number) => items => {
  items.current[id].checked = !items.current[id].checked;
});

const useToggleFilter = filterAtom.createAction(() => filter => {
  filter.current = !filter.current;
});

// ---------------------
// Components that use the hooks
// ---------------------
const List = () => {
  const items = useFilteredItems();
  const toggle = useToggleTodo();

  return (
    <>
      {items.map((item, index) => (
        <Checkbox
          key={index}
          checked={item.checked}
          label={item.todo}
          onChange={() => toggle(index)}
        />
      ))}
    </>
  );
};

const TodoInput = () => {
  const [value] = inputValueAtom.useValue();
  const setValue = inputValueAtom.useSet();
  const addTodo = useAddTodo();

  return (
    <ControlGroup>
      <InputGroup
        placeholder="Add a todo"
        value={value}
        onChange={e => setValue(e.target.value)}
      />
      <Button onClick={addTodo}>Add</Button>
    </ControlGroup>
  );
};

const FilterButton = () => {
  const toggle = useToggleFilter();
  const [isToggled] = filterAtom.useValue();
  return (
    <Button onClick={toggle} active={isToggled}>
      Only show completed todos
    </Button>
  );
};

// ---------------------
// App container
// ---------------------
export const App = () => (
  // We don't have to nest the providers so extremely, but this demonstrates how you can inject
  // atoms at any place in the hierarchy and they can still communicate upwards with other
  // atoms.
  <SynergyProvider atoms={[filterAtom]}>
    <FilterButton />
    <SynergyProvider atoms={[itemsAtom]}>
      <List />
      <SynergyProvider atoms={[inputValueAtom]}>
        <TodoInput />
      </SynergyProvider>
    </SynergyProvider>
  </SynergyProvider>
);

Maintenance

When developing locally, run in the root directory...

• yarn to install dependencies
• yarn test to run tests in all packages
• yarn build to build distributables and typings in packages/{package}/out
• yarn storybook to run a local storybook server
• yarn build-storybook to build the storybook
• npx lerna version to interactively bump the packages versions. This automatically commits the version, tags the commit and pushes to git remote.
• npx lerna publish to publish all packages to NPM that have changed since the last release. This automatically bumps the versions interactively.