Introducing Redux Preboiled

Both at Futurice and in my spare time, I'm working a lot on apps based on Redux. More often than not, the Redux parts tend to accumulate a good amount of boilerplate code - action type constants, action creator declarations, reducer switch statements with the same default: return state clauses, and so on.

Some codebases have ad-hoc helper functions to reduce the noise, but those are often sparsely documented and not general-purpose enough for reuse across projects. It would be nice if there was an existing library of well-maintained Redux helpers that our projects could rely on instead. However, whenever I looked for such a library, I didn't find anything quite matching my requirements.

Basically, I've been looking for a "Lodash for Redux" - a collection of simple, stand-alone helper functions that I can pick and choose from based on my project's needs, as opposed to an all-in-one framework like Rematch (which is nice, but too opinionated to fit every use case). These helpers need to work well with TypeScript as my work increasingly relies on it - a requirement that a lot of Redux libraries, many of which pre-date TypeScript, struggle with. Lastly, I generally want to avoid the mental overhead of introducing new concepts like models and entities; in most cases, I just need some conveniences on top of the existing Redux concepts.

As I couldn't find an existing solution, I started creating my own. I am happy to announce that I have recently released the result of this effort as Redux Preboiled.

TypeScript-friendly Redux helpers, served á la carte

Redux Preboiled is a library of boilerplate-reducing Redux helper functions, designed to fit together nicely while still being usable individually. It is written in and optimized for TypeScript, while still being a good fit for pure-JavaScript apps. A major goal for Preboiled is simplicity - no fancy new concepts, no reliance on clever "magic" to shave off a few more lines at the expense of understandability, but just small and straight-forward functions that can be easily composed to do greater things.

Let's look an example - in fact, let's look at the example of all examples in the Redux world, good old counter. For extra excitement, we're going to throw in a parameterized multiply action to complement increment. Here is how you might write this in vanilla Redux, assuming you follow the patterns recommended in the Redux documentation:

// Action Types

const INCREMENT = 'increment'
const MULTIPLY = 'multiply'

// Action Creators

const increment = () => ({
  type: INCREMENT
})

const multiply = amount => ({
  type: MULTIPLY,
  payload: amount
})

// Reducer

const counterReducer = (state = 0, action) => {
  switch (action.type) {
    case INCREMENT:
      return state + 1
    case MULTIPLY:
      return state * action.payload
    default:
      return state
  }
}

This is far from terrible, but there is already some fluff here. Note how we had to write two declarations for type of action - an action type constant and a corresponding action creator function. This approach has several benefits, of course, but it's still cumbersome. Also, for every other reducer like counterReducer, we'll need to repeat the switch (action.type) { … } ceremony and make sure not to forget the default: return state clause at the end.

With Redux Preboiled, you could write this instead:

import {
  chainReducers,
  createAction,
  onAction,
  withInitialState
} from 'redux-preboiled'

// Actions

const increment = createAction('increment')
const multiply = createAction('multiply').withPayload()

// Reducer

const counterReducer = chainReducers(
  withInitialState(0),
  onAction(increment, state => state + 1),
  onAction(multiply, (state, action) => state * action.payload)
)

We have reduced the number of lines from 28 to 19, six of which are the import statement. This means that, ignoring imports (which only matter so much here because the example is so small), Preboiled helped us cut the length of the action and reducer definitions in half, thanks to these four helpers:

• createAction, which generates an action creator given an action type (optionally with a payload parameter) and makes the action type available as a type property on that action creator (e.g., increment.type), making a separate action type constant unnecessary;

• onAction and withInitialState, which let you create sub-reducers that handle specific action types or provide an initial state, respectively;

• and chainReducers, which pulls our sub-reducers together by arranging them to a pipeline (or "call chain").

As can be seen above, these helpers are designed to fit well with each other. For example, onAction allowed us to specify the action type by passing one of the action creators we generated with createAction (e.g., increment), instead of having to explicitly pass the corresponding action type (increment.type or 'increment'). The latter option is also available - and makes onAction usable stand-alone - but the former offers additional convenience if you use both helpers together.

Goes well with TypeScript

From the start, Redux Preboiled was designed with TypeScript in mind. The helpers' function signatures lend themselves well to precise static typing, and I tried exploit opportunities for automatic type inference wherever possible.

As an example, let's look at onAction again. As mentioned before, it accepts an createAction action creator in place of of an action type. I added this option not only for convenience, but also for typing reasons: because the action creator's static type includes the shape of the actions it produces, TypeScript's compiler can infer the type of the state update function's action argument without you having to specify it. It will also give you an error if you explicitly specify an argument type that is not compatible with the inferred one.

// TypeScript

import { createAction, onAction } from 'redux-preboiled'

const multiply = createAction('multiply').withPayload<number>()

const onMultiply1 = onAction(multiply, (state: number, action) => {
  // `action` is inferred to be of type
  // PayloadAction<number, 'multiply'>.
  return state + action.payload
})

const onMultiply1 = onAction(
  multiply,
    (state, action: PayloadAction<string>) => {
    // ERROR: Argument of type
    // 'PayloadActionCreator<number, "multiply">'
    // is not assignable to parameter of type
    // 'TypedActionCreator<string, any>'.
  }
)

Note how in the snippet above, createAction(…).withPayload() allows us to specify the type of the payload using a type parameter - another way in which Preboiled helps you keep your code type-safe.

What about Redux Starter Kit?

About a year ago, Redux core maintainer Mark Erikson released Redux Starter Kit, a library that makes it easy to get productive in Redux. It is similar to Redux Preboiled in that it also includes a bunch of helper functions, including a createAction function that inspired the Preboiled equivalent. In fact, before I started Preboiled, I helped porting Redux Starter Kit to TypeScript.

However, the two libraries differ somewhat in their approach. The vision behind Redux Starter Kit is to become a "create-react-app of Redux" - an opinionated plug-and-play Redux setup that lets you hit the ground running without wasting time on menial tasks like integrating Dev Tools or deciding on a side effects library (Redux Thunk is pre-configured). The flip side, of course, is that you might get things that are more than, or different from, what you want; for instance, Redux Starter Kit's createReducer helper pulls in Immer for simplified immutable updates, even if you have no interest in leveraging that integration.

Redux Preboiled, on the other hand, takes more of a toolkit approach. It doesn't help with setting up your Redux store or choosing your middleware. Instead, it just gives you set of useful tools, each of which you can use or ignore as needed. This flexibility results in a bit less convenience, but makes the libary useful to a wider set of Redux projects.

Ulimately, Redux Starter Kit and Preboiled are not really conflicting choices. You may well use the latter on top of a store set up with the former. I also believe there is a lot of room for cross-pollination, and I can see myself contributing bits of Preboiled to Starter Kit as well if they are good fits.

Ready for Serving

Version 0.1.0 of Redux Preboiled is now available on NPM and [GitHub][redux-preboiled-github]. The current set of helpers is still very small, but should grow over time to cover more sources of Redux boilerplate.

To get started, check out the documentation, which includes several guides and also detailed API docs for all of the helpers. Enjoy!