FAQ & Non-Goals

Frequently asked questions

Is Kin Store production-ready?

Yes for the core API (createStore, withPlugins, derive), the official plugins, and the React bindings, all covered by tests that run on every publish. The project is young, so treat the usual pre-1.0 signals (small community, short track record) as real inputs to your own risk assessment, not something the docs will talk you out of.

Does it work outside React?

Yes. @kin-store/core and @kin-store/plugins have zero framework dependency: a store is a plain value with get/set/subscribe, usable from any JS/TS environment (vanilla, a framework's own reactivity, a worker, a Node/Deno backend). @kin-store/react is the only official framework binding published today.

Is there official Vue, Svelte, or Solid support?

Not yet. Nothing in the architecture is React-specific (useStore is a thin useSyncExternalStore wrapper), so a similar binding for another framework is plausible future work, but no such package exists or is published today. subscribe is plain enough to wire into another framework's reactivity by hand in the meantime.

Does it work with SSR / Next.js?

Yes; see the Next.js example. SSR mainly changes two things: where the store instance lives (constructed per-request or via a provider, not a module-level singleton shared across requests) and when persist is allowed to touch localStorage (skipped on the server, hydrated explicitly on the client).

Is there a DevTools integration?

Yes, via the official devtools plugin, which connects to the Redux DevTools Extension for time-travel debugging, action replay, and jump-to-state. It is opt-in like every other plugin; a store that never registers it carries no devtools code.

Can reducers or methods be async?

methods can be async directly; a method is just a function with full access to get/set/dispatch. reducers are pure and synchronous by design, (state, ...args) => nextState, so async work (a fetch call) belongs in a method that calls dispatch or set once the result is ready, not in the reducer itself.

How does Kin Store handle server state, caching, and refetching?

It doesn't, on purpose. createStore/withPlugins model state your client owns; server-owned data (cached responses, request dedup, background refetch) is TanStack Query's job, not Kin Store's. See the TanStack Query examples for two ways to split the two: client state as one withPlugins store, or one createStore per field.

Does persist or broadcast handle conflict resolution for concurrent edits?

No. persist writes state to storage and reads it back; broadcast mirrors state across tabs with last-write-wins by wall-clock time, so if two tabs change state within the same millisecond, one change is silently dropped. Neither merges concurrent edits. For state that genuinely needs that (real-time collaborative editing), reach for a CRDT library instead.

What's the bundle size?

createStore is 244 B gzipped, withPlugins is 1.07 KB, and derive is 465 B, each measured independently since you only pay for what you .use(). Plugins and the React bindings add their own (small) cost on top only when imported.

Where do I ask a question or report a bug?

GitHub Discussions for questions and design feedback, Issues for bugs.

Non-goals

• Not a server-state or data-fetching library. No request cache, no dedup, no background refetch. Pair it with TanStack Query, SWR, or similar for that half of your state.
• Not an implicit, proxy-based reactivity system. State changes only through set or a dispatched reducer; nothing mutates a draft behind your back unless you explicitly opt into the immer plugin.
• Not a schema-validation library. State shape is whatever TypeScript type you give createStore; validating external input (an API response, a form) is left to a dedicated library.
• Not multi-framework today. @kin-store/react is the only official binding; there's no Vue, Svelte, or Solid package yet.
• Not a CRDT or a general conflict-resolution system. persist and broadcast are last-write-wins; concurrent, mergeable edits are out of scope.
• Not trying to out-feature Redux. No built-in serializable action log format, no time-travel outside the devtools plugin, no code-generation. The comparison page covers the tradeoffs directly.