Simplified State Management with Zustand in Next.js 13

State management is an essential part of building modern web applications. It helps you keep track of and update the application's data. Zustand is a lightweight state management library that offers a simple and intuitive API. In this tutorial, we'll explore how to use Zustand for server-side rendering in a Next.js 13 application.

Installation

To get started, let's install Zustand in our Next.js 13 project. Open your terminal and run the following command:

npm install zustand

Creating a Store

The first step is to create a store using Zustand. The store will hold our application's state and provide methods to modify it. Here's an example of how to create a store for managing bears:

import { create } from 'zustand';

const useBearStore = create((set) => ({
  bears: 0,
  increasePopulation: () => set((state) => ({ bears: state.bears + 1 })),
  removeAllBears: () => set({ bears: 0 }),
}));

In this example, we define a useBearStore store using create. It takes a callback function that receives a set parameter. The set function allows us to update the store's state. We define two methods, increasePopulation and removeAllBears, which modify the bears state.

Displaying the Content

To display the content of our store on the client side, we can create a component called BearCounter:

import { useBearStore } from './path/to/store';

function BearCounter() {
  const bears = useBearStore((state) => state.bears);
  return <h1>{bears} around here...</h1>;
}

Here, we use the useBearStore hook provided by Zustand to access the bears state from our store. We can then use this state in our component as needed.

Adding Controls

To add controls for modifying the store's state, we can create another component called Controls:

import { useBearStore } from './path/to/store';

function Controls() {
  const increasePopulation = useBearStore((state) => state.increasePopulation);
  return <button onClick={increasePopulation}>One up</button>;
}

In this example, we use the increasePopulation method from our store to increase the bear population when the button is clicked.

Server-Side Rendering with Zustand in Next.js 13

Next.js 13 introduces built-in support for server-side rendering (SSR) with Zustand. To enable server-side rendering for your store, you can modify the store creation code as follows:

import { useStore } from "@/Store";


export default async function getAiResult() {
  try {
    useStore.setState({ isLoading: true });

    const options = {
      method: "POST",
      headers: {
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
        Authorization: `Bearer ${API_KEY}`,
   ...
    const res = await fetch(API_URL, options);
    const data = await res.json();
    const result = data?.choices[0]?.text;

    useStore.setState({ isLoading: false });

    return result;
  } catch (error) {
    useStore.setState({ isLoading: false });

    throw error;
  }
}

In this code, the getAiResult function is responsible for making an API request to an OpenAI endpoint to generate a summary based on the provided text. Here are the key steps:

1. The function sets the isLoading state to true using useStore.setState({ isLoading: true }). This can be used to show a loading indicator in the UI.

2. It constructs the options object for the API request, including the necessary headers and request body with the text to summarize.

3. The fetch function is used to send the request to the specified API URL.

4. The response is parsed as JSON using res.json(), and the generated summary is extracted from the response data.

5. Finally, the isLoading state is set to false using useStore.setState({ isLoading: false }), indicating that the API request is complete.

The function returns the generated summary as the result of the asynchronous operation.

Please note that this code assumes you have a useStore state store implementation available in your application.

Zustand Documentation:

• Official Documentation: The official documentation of Zustand provides detailed information about its features, API, and usage. You can find it at: https://zustand.surge.sh/

Next.js Documentation:

• Official Documentation: Next.js has comprehensive documentation that covers a wide range of topics, including server-side rendering, data fetching, routing, and more. You can find it at: https://nextjs.org/docs

Next.js 13 Announcement:

• Next.js Blog: The Next.js blog often announces major updates and features. You can read the Next.js 13 announcement blog post to learn about the latest features and improvements: https://nextjs.org/blog/next-13

Next.js GitHub Repository:

• GitHub Repository: The Next.js GitHub repository is a great resource to explore the source code, raise issues, and contribute to the project: https://github.com/vercel/next.js