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React integration
React integration
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React integration

Usage:

import { observer } from "mobx-react-lite" // Or "mobx-react".

const MyComponent = observer(props => ReactElement)

While MobX works independently from React, they are most commonly used together. In The gist of MobX you have already seen the most important part of this integration: the observer HoC that you can wrap around a React component.

observer is provided by a separate React bindings package you choose during installation. In this example, we're going to use the more lightweight mobx-react-lite package.

import React from "react"
import ReactDOM from "react-dom"
import { makeAutoObservable } from "mobx"
import { observer } from "mobx-react-lite"

class Timer {
    secondsPassed = 0

    constructor() {
        makeAutoObservable(this)
    }

    increaseTimer() {
        this.secondsPassed += 1
    }
}

const myTimer = new Timer()

// A function component wrapped with `observer` will react
// to any future change in an observable it used before.
const TimerView = observer(({ timer }) => <span>Seconds passed: {timer.secondsPassed}</span>)

ReactDOM.render(<TimerView timer={myTimer} />, document.body)

setInterval(() => {
    myTimer.increaseTimer()
}, 1000)

Hint: you can play with the above example yourself on CodeSandbox.

The observer HoC automatically subscribes React components to any observables that are used during rendering. As a result, components will automatically re-render when relevant observables change. It also makes sure that components don't re-render when there are no relevant changes. So, observables that are accessible by the component, but not actually read, won't ever cause a re-render.

In practice this makes MobX applications very well optimized out of the box and they typically don't need any additional code to prevent excessive rendering.

For observer to work, it doesn't matter how the observables arrive in the component, only that they are read. Reading observables deeply is fine, complex expression like todos[0].author.displayName work out of the box. This makes the subscription mechanism much more precise and efficient compared to other frameworks in which data dependencies have to be declared explicitly or be pre-computed (e.g. selectors).

Local and external state

There is great flexibility in how state is organized, since it doesn't matter (technically that is) which observables we read or where observables originated from. The examples below demonstrate different patterns on how external and local observable state can be used in components wrapped with observer.

Using external state in observer components

Observables can be passed into components as props (as in the example above):

import { observer } from "mobx-react-lite"

const myTimer = new Timer() // See the Timer definition above.

const TimerView = observer(({ timer }) => <span>Seconds passed: {timer.secondsPassed}</span>)

// Pass myTimer as a prop.
ReactDOM.render(<TimerView timer={myTimer} />, document.body)

Since it doesn't matter how we got the reference to an observable, we can consume observables from outer scopes directly (including from imports, etc.):

const myTimer = new Timer() // See the Timer definition above.

// No props, `myTimer` is directly consumed from the closure.
const TimerView = observer(() => <span>Seconds passed: {myTimer.secondsPassed}</span>)

ReactDOM.render(<TimerView />, document.body)

Using observables directly works very well, but since this typically introduces module state, this pattern might complicate unit testing. Instead, we recommend using React Context instead.

React Context is a great mechanism to share observables with an entire subtree:

import {observer} from 'mobx-react-lite'
import {createContext, useContext} from "react"

const TimerContext = createContext<Timer>()

const TimerView = observer(() => {
    // Grab the timer from the context.
    const timer = useContext(TimerContext) // See the Timer definition above.
    return (
        <span>Seconds passed: {timer.secondsPassed}</span>
    )
})

ReactDOM.render(
    <TimerContext.Provider value={new Timer()}>
        <TimerView />
    </TimerContext.Provider>,
    document.body
)

Note that we don't recommend ever replacing the value of a Provider with a different one. Using MobX, there should be no need for that, since the observable that is shared can be updated itself.

Using local observable state in observer components

Since observables used by observer can come from anywhere, they can be local state as well. Again, different options are available for us.

The simplest way to use local observable state is to store a reference to an observable class with useState. Note that, since we typically don't want to replace the reference, we totally ignore the updater function returned by useState:

import { observer } from "mobx-react-lite"
import { useState } from "react"

const TimerView = observer(() => {
    const [timer] = useState(() => new Timer()) // See the Timer definition above.
    return <span>Seconds passed: {timer.secondsPassed}</span>
})

ReactDOM.render(<TimerView />, document.body)

If you want to automatically update the timer like we did in the original example, useEffect could be used in typical React fashion:

useEffect(() => {
    const handle = setInterval(() => {
        timer.increaseTimer()
    }, 1000)
    return () => {
        clearInterval(handle)
    }
}, [timer])

As stated before, instead of using classes, it is possible to directly create observable objects. We can leverage observable for that:

import { observer } from "mobx-react-lite"
import { observable } from "mobx"
import { useState } from "react"

const TimerView = observer(() => {
    const [timer] = useState(() =>
        observable({
            secondsPassed: 0,
            increaseTimer() {
                this.secondsPassed++
            }
        })
    )
    return <span>Seconds passed: {timer.secondsPassed}</span>
})

ReactDOM.render(<TimerView />, document.body)

The combination const [store] = useState(() => observable({ /* something */})) is quite common. To make this pattern simpler the useLocalObservable hook is exposed from mobx-react-lite package, making it possible to simplify the earlier example to:

import { observer, useLocalObservable } from "mobx-react-lite"

const TimerView = observer(() => {
    const timer = useLocalObservable(() => ({
        secondsPassed: 0,
        increaseTimer() {
            this.secondsPassed++
        }
    }))
    return <span>Seconds passed: {timer.secondsPassed}</span>
})

ReactDOM.render(<TimerView />, document.body)

You might not need locally observable state

In general, we recommend to not resort to MobX observables for local component state too quickly, as this can theoretically lock you out of some features of React's Suspense mechanism. As a rule of thumb, use MobX observables when the state captures domain data that is shared among components (including children). Such as todo items, users, bookings, etc.

State that only captures UI state, like loading state, selections, etc, might be better served by the useState hook, since this will allow you to leverage React suspense features in the future.

Using observables inside React components adds value as soon as they are either 1) deep, 2) have computed values or 3) are shared with other observer components.

Always read observables inside observer components

You might be wondering, when do I apply observer? The rule of thumb is: apply observer to all components that read observable data.

observer only enhances the component you are decorating, not the components called by it. So usually all your components should be wrapped by observer. Don't worry, this is not inefficient. On the contrary, more observer components make rendering more efficient as updates become more fine-grained.

Tip: Grab values from objects as late as possible

observer works best if you pass object references around as long as possible, and only read their properties inside the observer based components that are going to render them into the DOM / low-level components. In other words, observer reacts to the fact that you 'dereference' a value from an object.

In the above example, the TimerView component would not react to future changes if it was defined as follows, because the .secondsPassed is not read inside the observer component, but outside, and is hence not tracked:

const TimerView = observer(({ secondsPassed }) => <span>Seconds passed: {secondsPassed}</span>)

React.render(<TimerView secondsPassed={myTimer.secondsPassed} />, document.body)

Note that this is a different mindset from other libraries like react-redux, where it is a good practice to dereference early and pass primitives down, to better leverage memoization. If the problem is not entirely clear, make sure to check out the Understanding reactivity section.

Don't pass observables into components that aren't observer

Components wrapped with observer only subscribe to observables used during their own rendering of the component. So if observable objects / arrays / maps are passed to child components, those have to be wrapped with observer as well. This is also true for any callback based components.

If you want to pass observables to a component that isn't an observer, either because it is a third-party component, or because you want to keep that component MobX agnostic, you will have to convert the observables to plain JavaScript values or structures before passing them on.

To elaborate on the above, take the following example observable todo object, a TodoView component (observer) and an imaginary GridRow component that takes a column / value mapping, but which isn't an observer:

class Todo {
    title = "test"
    done = true

    constructor() {
        makeAutoObservable(this)
    }
}

const TodoView = observer(({ todo }: { todo: Todo }) =>
   // WRONG: GridRow won't pick up changes in todo.title / todo.done
   //        since it isn't an observer.
   return <GridRow data={todo} />

   // CORRECT: let `TodoView` detect relevant changes in `todo`,
   //          and pass plain data down.
   return <GridRow data={{
       title: todo.title,
       done: todo.done
   }} />

   // CORRECT: using `toJS` works as well, but being explicit is typically better.
   return <GridRow data={toJS(todo)} />
)

Callback components might require <Observer>

Imagine the same example, where GridRow takes an onRender callback instead. Since onRender is part of the rendering cycle of GridRow, rather than TodoView's render (even though that is where it syntactically appears), we have to make sure that the callback component uses an observer component. Or, we can create an in-line anonymous observer using <Observer />:

const TodoView = observer(({ todo }: { todo: Todo }) => {
    // WRONG: GridRow.onRender won't pick up changes in todo.title / todo.done
    //        since it isn't an observer.
    return <GridRow onRender={() => <td>{todo.title}</td>} />

    // CORRECT: wrap the callback rendering in Observer to be able to detect changes.
    return <GridRow onRender={() => <Observer>{() => <td>{todo.title}</td>}</Observer>} />
})

Tips

Server Side Rendering (SSR) If `observer` is used in server side rendering context; make sure to call `enableStaticRendering(true)`, so that `observer` won't subscribe to any observables used, and no GC problems are introduced.
**Note:** mobx-react vs. mobx-react-lite In this documentation we used `mobx-react-lite` as default. [mobx-react](https://github.com/mobxjs/mobx-react/) is it's big brother, which uses `mobx-react-lite` under the hood. It offers a few more features which are typically not needed anymore in greenfield projects. The additional things offered by mobx-react:
  1. Support for React class components.
  2. Provider and inject. MobX's own React.createContext predecessor which is not needed anymore.
  3. Observable specific propTypes.

Note that mobx-react fully repackages and re-exports mobx-react-lite, including functional component support. If you use mobx-react, there is no need to add mobx-react-lite as a dependency or import from it anywhere.

**Note:** `observer` or `React.memo`? `observer` automatically applies `memo`, so `observer` components never need to be wrapped in `memo`. `memo` can be applied safely to observer components because mutations (deeply) inside the props will be picked up by `observer` anyway if relevant.
**Tip:** `observer` for class based React components As stated above, class based components are only supported through `mobx-react`, and not `mobx-react-lite`. Briefly, you can wrap class-based components in `observer` just like you can wrap function components: 
import React from "React"

const TimerView = observer(
    class TimerView extends React.Component {
        render() {
            const { timer } = this.props
            return <span>Seconds passed: {timer.secondsPassed} </span>
        }
    }
)

Check out mobx-react docs for more information.

**Tip:** nice component names in React DevTools [React DevTools](https://reactjs.org/blog/2019/08/15/new-react-devtools.html) uses the display name information of components to properly display the component hierarchy.

If you use:

export const MyComponent = observer(props => <div>hi</div>)

then no display name will be visible in the DevTools.

devtools-noname

The following approaches can be used to fix this:

  • use function with a name instead of an arrow function. mobx-react infers component name from the function name:

    export const MyComponent = observer(function MyComponent(props) {
    return <div>hi</div>
})

  • Transpilers (like Babel or TypeScript) infer component name from the variable name:

    const _MyComponent = props => <div>hi</div>
export const MyComponent = observer(_MyComponent)

  • Infer from the variable name again, using default export:

    const MyComponent = props => <div>hi</div>
export default observer(MyComponent)

  • [Broken] Set displayName explicitly:

    export const MyComponent = observer(props => <div>hi</div>)
MyComponent.displayName = "MyComponent"

    This is broken in React 16 at the time of writing; mobx-react observer uses a React.memo and runs into this bug: facebook/react#18026, but it will be fixed in React 17.

Now you can see component names:

devtools-withname

{🚀} **Tip:** when combining `observer` with other higher-order-components, apply `observer` first

When observer needs to be combined with other decorators or higher-order-components, make sure that observer is the innermost (first applied) decorator; otherwise it might do nothing at all.

{🚀} **Tip:** deriving computeds from props In some cases the computed values of your local observables might depend on some of the props your component receives. However, the set of props that a React component receives is in itself not observable, so changes to the props won't be reflected in any computed values. You have to manually update local observable state in order to properly derive computed values from latest data. 
import { observer, useLocalObservable } from "mobx-react-lite"
import { useEffect } from "react"

const TimerView = observer(({ offset = 0 }) => {
    const timer = useLocalObservable(() => ({
        offset, // The initial offset value
        secondsPassed: 0,
        increaseTimer() {
            this.secondsPassed++
        },
        get offsetTime() {
            return this.secondsPassed - this.offset // Not 'offset' from 'props'!
        }
    }))

    useEffect(() => {
        // Sync the offset from 'props' into the observable 'timer'
        timer.offset = offset
    }, [offset])

    // Effect to set up a timer, only for demo purposes.
    useEffect(() => {
        const handle = setInterval(timer.increaseTimer, 1000)
        return () => {
            clearInterval(handle)
        }
    }, [])

    return <span>Seconds passed: {timer.offsetTime}</span>
})

ReactDOM.render(<TimerView />, document.body)

In practice you will rarely need this pattern, since return <span>Seconds passed: {timer.secondsPassed - offset}</span> is a much simpler, albeit slightly less efficient solution.

{🚀} **Tip:** useEffect and observables

useEffect can be used to set up side effects that need to happen, and which are bound to the life-cycle of the React component. Using useEffect requires specifying dependencies. With MobX that isn't really needed, since MobX has already a way to automatically determine the dependencies of an effect, autorun. Combining autorun and coupling it to the life-cycle of the component using useEffect is luckily straightforward:

import { observer, useLocalObservable, useAsObservableSource } from "mobx-react-lite"
import { useState } from "react"

const TimerView = observer(() => {
    const timer = useLocalObservable(() => ({
        secondsPassed: 0,
        increaseTimer() {
            this.secondsPassed++
        }
    }))

    // Effect that triggers upon observable changes.
    useEffect(
        () =>
            autorun(() => {
                if (timer.secondsPassed > 60) alert("Still there. It's a minute already?!!")
            }),
        []
    )

    // Effect to set up a timer, only for demo purposes.
    useEffect(() => {
        const handle = setInterval(timer.increaseTimer, 1000)
        return () => {
            clearInterval(handle)
        }
    }, [])

    return <span>Seconds passed: {timer.secondsPassed}</span>
})

ReactDOM.render(<TimerView />, document.body)

Note that we return the disposer created by autorun from our effect function. This is important, since it makes sure the autorun gets cleaned up once the component unmounts!

The dependency array can typically be left empty, unless a non-observable value should trigger a re-run of the autorun, in which case you will need to add it there. To make your linter happy, you can define timer (in the above example) as a dependency. That is safe and has no further effect, since the reference will never actually change.

If you'd rather explicitly define which observables should trigger the effect, use reaction instead of autorun, beyond that the pattern remains identical.

How can I further optimize my React components?

Check out the React optimizations {🚀} section.

Troubleshooting

Help! My component isn't re-rendering...

  1. Make sure you didn't forget observer (yes, this is the most common mistake).
  2. Verify that the thing you intend to react to is indeed observable. Use utilities like isObservable, isObservableProp if needed to verify this at runtime.
  3. Check the console logs in the browsers for any warnings or errors.
  4. Make sure you grok how tracking works in general. Check out the Understanding reactivity section.
  5. Read the common pitfalls as described above.
  6. Configure MobX to warn you of unsound usage of mechanisms and check the console logs.
  7. Use trace to verify that you are subscribing to the right things or check what MobX is doing in general using spy / the mobx-log package.