Pro State Machine

Professional state machine patterns for managing complex React application state, focused on making invalid states impossible through type-safe design.

Architecture Philosophy

1. Events Over State: Capture user intent explicitly rather than mutating state directly
2. Impossible States Prevention: Use TypeScript's type system to make invalid states unrepresentable
3. Separation of Concerns: Keep pure state transitions separate from side effects

Core Rules

• Derive, don't store — compute values during render instead of syncing them with useState + useEffect.
• Model state as a finite state machine — a single status discriminated union, never boolean flag soup (isLoading/isError/isSuccess).
• Combine related state in a reducer — atomic updates, no intermediate invalid states; useState only for simple independent values.
• Drive side effects by events, not reactions — one effect watches status, never cascading useEffect chains.
• Fetch with a dedicated library — TanStack Query or SWR over hand-rolled useEffect fetching.
• Normalize entities — flat maps keyed by ID, not deeply nested arrays.

References

Each file is loaded on demand — read one only when the task needs that depth (progressive disclosure).

• references/derived-state.md — why and how to compute derived values during render instead of storing them · read when a component syncs state with useEffect or holds totals/filters/computed strings in state.
• references/finite-state-machines.md — discriminated-union state with a single status field and exhaustive switches · read when modeling idle/loading/error/success or replacing boolean flag soup.
• references/reducers.md — combining related variables into one useReducer for atomic, testable transitions (booking-form example) · read when 3+ variables change together or transitions get complex.
• references/event-driven-effects.md — event-driven side effects: explicit actions + a single effect watching status (flight-search example) · read when you have cascading effects, race conditions, or unpredictable async flows.
• references/data-fetching.md — TanStack Query / SWR for queries and optimistic mutations, and when to use which · read when fetching server data or replacing manual useEffect + useState fetching.
• references/form-state.md — native FormData + useActionState + schema validation for multi-field/multi-step forms · read when building complex or multi-step forms.
• references/normalization.md — flat entity maps keyed by ID with selector functions for O(1) updates · read when state holds deeply nested arrays or updates require deep traversal.
• references/testing-reducers.md — testing pure reducers directly with Vitest (transitions and guard invariants) · read when writing tests for state logic.