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Type Safety Problem While Using TypeScript with React

Understand the type safety problems encountered when integrating TypeScript with React's Context API, including the challenges of initial context values. Learn practical solutions such as type assertions to maintain type safety without sacrificing code quality, enabling better state management in React applications.

The fundamental problem

The core issue on our side is not necessarily a TypeScript problem. It’s a React problem:

  1. When we call React.createContext, TypeScript will want to know what value we can expect.

  2. But we don’t have that value yet because we have to wait for the Provider component to mount to use useState.

  3. TypeScript will consider this an issue because we’re passing it something that isn’t what it expects.

  4. If we say it can be a color or undefined, TypeScript will never be sure which one it’s working with. ...