@shopify/react-universal-provider

Factory function and utilities to create self-serializing/deserializing providers that work for isomorphic applications.

Table of contents

1. Installation
2. What is a Universal Provider?
3. Usage

Installation

yarn add @shopify/react-universal-provider

What is a Universal Provider ?

A universal provider is a React component that leverages the useSerialized() hook from @shopify/react-html to handle both serializing data during server rendering, and deserializing it on the client. The components often render React.context() providers to make their serialized state available to the rest of the app they're rendered in.

Comparison with traditional serialization techniques

Consider the I18nUniversalProvider. In the server you may want to set the locale based on the Accept-Language header. The client needs to be informed of this somehow to make sure React can render consistently. Traditionally you might do something like:

On the server

• Get the locale from the Accept-Language header in your node server
• Create an instance of I18nManager with that locale
• Pass the instance into your app
• Render a <Serialize name="locale" /> component in the DOM you send to the client

On the client

• Call getSerialized('locale') in your client entry point for your locale
• Create an instance of I18nManager with that locale
• Pass the instance into your app

In your react app's universal code

• Have your app render an <I18nProvider /> with the manager from props

With universal provider you would instead:

On the server

• Get the locale from the Accept-Language header in your node server
• Pass the locale into your app directly

On the client

• Render your app without passing in the locale

In your react app's universal code

• Have your app render an I18nUniversalProvider with the locale from props

Since universal provider handle the details of serialization they allow you to remove code from your client/server entry points and instead let the react app itself handle those concerns.

Usage

This package provide a function which can be use to create a universal provider given a React Context object. It is particularly useful for simple object or primitive that need to be sync up between the server and client.

The list below show a few packages with more complex universal provider:

@shopify/react-app-bridge-universal-provider @shopify/react-csrf-universal-provider @shopify/react-graphql-universal-provider` @shopify/react-i18n-universal-provider

createUniversalProvider

Options

The function takes a unique id and a React Context object.

Props

The resulting Provider takes children and a data prop.

interface Props<Value> {
  value?: Value;
  children?: React.ReactNode;
}

Example

//ApiKeyUniversalProvider.tsx
import {createContext} from 'react';
import {createUniversalProvider} from '@shopify/react-universal-provider';

export const ApiKeyContext = createContext<string | null>(null);
export const ApiKeyUniversalProvider = createUniversalProvider(
  'api-key',
  ApiKeyContext,
);

// App.tsx
import {ApiKeyProvider} from './ApiKeyProvider';

function App({apiKey}: {apiKey?: string}) {
  return (
    <ApiKeyProvider value={apiKey}>{/* rest of the app */}</ApiKeyProvider>
  );
}