jotai-components 👻⚛

jotai-components allows you to pass Jotai atoms as props directly to React components, making your UI reactive without extra boilerplate:

const styleAtom = atom({ width: 100 })

// ✅ This component will not re-render
function Parent() {
  // ✅ `jotai.div` will re-render whenever styleAtom's value changes
  return <jotai.div $style={styleAtom}>example</jotai.div>
}

Installation

npm i jotai-components

yarn add jotai-components 

pnpm add jotai-components

The Problem

Sometimes, you need to use an atom's value within a component, but this leads to re-renders every time the atom’s value changes:

import { atom, useAtomValue } from 'jotai'

const styleAtom = atom({ width: 100 })

// ❌ This component re-renders every time the atom's value changes
function Parent() {
  const style = useAtomValue(styleAtom)
  
  return <div style={style}>example</div>
}

To prevent unnecessary re-renders in the parent component, you would normally move the atom logic to a child component:

import { type Atom, atom, useAtomValue } from 'jotai'
import {
  type CSSProperties,
  type HTMLAttributes,
  type PropsWithChildren,
  type ReactNode,
  forwardRef,
} from 'react'

const styleAtom = atom({ width: 100 })

// ✅ This component will not re-render
function Parent() {
  return <Child styleAtom={styleAtom}>example</Child>
}

// 😕 Based on requirements, this can quickly become cumbersome (imports are also inflated)
const Child = forwardRef<
  HTMLDivElement,
  Omit<HTMLAttributes<HTMLDivElement>, 'style'> & {
  styleAtom: Atom<CSSProperties>
}
>(function Child(props, ref) {
  return <div {...props} ref={ref} />
})

While this pattern prevents unnecessary re-renders, it can become cumbersome as the number of atoms grows, and it increases the complexity of the component hierarchy.

The Solution

With jotai-components, you can pass atoms directly as props to components, without needing to create separate child components for each atom:

import { atom } from 'jotai'
import { jotai } from 'jotai-components'

const styleAtom = atom({ width: 100 })

// 🤩 Parent does not re-render, and atoms can be passed directly as props
function Parent() {
  return (
    <jotai.div className="ordinary-props-as-well" $style={styleAtom}>
      example
    </jotai.div>
  )
}

This solution simplifies the code by removing the need for useAtomValue and separate child components.

API

jotai.<tag>

Use jotai.<tag> to create components (e.g., jotai.span, jotai.button, etc.) that accept props either as regular values or as atoms (see the example above).

jotai.memo

Use jotai.memo to render dynamic content from atoms. It accepts atoms as children that resolve to values conforming to the ReactNode type:

import { atom } from 'jotai'
import { jotai } from 'jotai-components'

const worldAtom = atom('World')

function Parent() {
  return (
    <div>
      {/* Hello, World! */}
      Hello, <jotai.memo>{worldAtom}</jotai.memo>!
    </div>
  )
}

jotai.create

You can create reactive components around custom React components:

import { atom } from 'jotai'
import { jotai } from 'jotai-components'
import { motion } from 'framer-motion'
import { Button } from 'react-aria-components'

const JotaiMotionButton = jotai.create(motion.create(Button))

const motionStyleAtom = atom({ width: 100 })

function Parent() {
  return (
    <JotaiMotionButton transition={{ duration: 1 }} $animate={motionStyleAtom}>
      example
    </JotaiMotionButton>
  )
}

Caution

Avoid using jotai.create inside render loops, as this will create a new component on every render. Instead, move the jotai.create call outside the component or use techniques to ensure a stable reference.

Warning

While this example uses Framer Motion with atoms to update the animate prop, which can trigger re-renders, it may not be suitable for continuous animation values. In those cases, consider using MotionValues.

License

MIT