ADR 003 - No Global State Manager

Status: Accepted
Date: 2024

---

Decision

Do not use Redux, Zustand, Jotai, or any other global state manager. Use React's built-in useState, useContext, and prop-passing.

---

Context

Frontend state in DevStackBox is:

• Service statuses (running/stopped) - polled every 5 seconds
• UI state (sidebar open, modals open, current page)
• Config content (per editor session)
• Settings (theme, language)

---

Options Considered

---

Decision Rationale

1. App is small: DevStackBox has a handful of pages and a small component tree. Global state management adds overhead that is not justified.
2. Service state is ephemeral: Service status is polled from the OS every 5 seconds anyway. There is no need for optimistic updates or complex state transitions.
3. Prop drilling is not deep: The component tree is shallow enough that prop passing does not become painful.
4. Simplicity: Any contributor can understand useState without learning a state library.

---

Consequences

• State is managed at the component level or in App.tsx for app-wide state
• Service polling lives exclusively in service-manager.tsx - do not create other polling loops
• If the app grows significantly in complexity, reconsider Zustand (lightweight, no boilerplate)
• Theme and language are exceptions: they use i18next (language) and a useTheme hook (theme) which act as app-wide state

---

When to Reconsider

If these conditions are met, add Zustand:

• More than 5 pages with shared state
• Deep prop drilling (3+ levels for the same prop)
• Complex async state with loading/error/success flows in multiple components