State-of-the-art React Server Components Developer Tooling

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The talk will start with a quick introduction to React Server Components and then move on to show how they're visualized in one of the developer tools we've built for RedwoodJS. This will give everyone a better understanding of where the client/server boundaries are and how ""use client"" and component imports work together to decide what code gets executed by the RSC server and what code gets executed in the user's browser. This understanding is generally applicable to any RSC enabled framework (which mostly means NextJS right now).


Now, with the audience equipped with a better understanding of RSCs I'll dive into the RSC Payload (aka Flight) format explaining what it is and how it works. For this part of the talk I will use a tool we've built to record and visualize the RSC network traffic to aid me in explaining the RSC protocol. I will also show how it helps developers identify bottlenecks by showing payload sizes and request durations.


After attending my talk, the audience will have a much deeper understanding of how RSCs work, all the way down to the RSC protocol level. They will also be excited and eager to explore our state-of-the-art RSC app developer tooling.

This talk has been presented at React Advanced 2024, check out the latest edition of this React Conference.

FAQ

Redwood Studio is a companion app for Redwood apps, providing a collection of useful tools for developers, including performance graphs, OpenTelemetry monitoring, GraphQL tools, a database schema view, and a dev time email inbox.

React Server Components (RSC) are a way to execute React components on the server in a server context, sending the result to the client in a format known as the RSC payload.

Redwood is ideal for small teams or individual developers as it provides a full-stack framework that simplifies starting a new project quickly, combining both backend and frontend development needs.

Redwood is compared to Laravel and Ruby on Rails because it aims to provide a full-stack framework with high productivity and ease of use, similar to these established frameworks.

Redwood is designed as a full-stack framework, which may be challenging to integrate with existing backends, as it includes both frontend and backend solutions.

Redwood is a super-productive framework for building full-stack JavaScript and TypeScript web applications.

Redwood aims to focus on server-side caching, allowing developers more control, especially around cache invalidation, and plans to make caching validation strategy configurable.

Redwood plans to make React components the default for data fetching to simplify initial setup, offering GraphQL as an optional feature for more advanced use cases, like when a mobile client is needed.

Implementing server actions in Redwood involves parsing various ways developers can define server actions, handling multiple syntax options, and ensuring compatibility with the React Server Components architecture.

Alvar Lagerlöf is a notable contributor, having significantly improved the RSC payload part of Redwood Studio with his RSC partial library.

Tobbe Lundberg
Tobbe Lundberg
27 min
25 Oct, 2024

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Video Summary and Transcription
Redwood Studio is a companion app for building full-stack JavaScript, TypeScript web applications. It offers features like OpenTelemetry monitoring, GraphQL tools, Prisma ORM integration, SSR preview, and React Server components (RSC) cache support. The Render Routes feature provides a graph of components visible on a page, helping users understand the rendering locations. The RSC payload and analysis feature allows for analyzing the timeline and responses received by the app. The payload and the rendered output can be mapped together to understand component size and structure. Redwood aims to be a full-stack framework that simplifies development and supports both current GraphQL users and beginners. It also emphasizes the flexibility and power of React Server components. Redwood aspires to be the Laravel or Ruby on Rails of JavaScript, offering quick project setup and high productivity.
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