How do you decide whether state belongs locally, in a parent, in the URL, in a cache, or in a shared store?

Choose React state ownership and lifetime

Places state according to who owns it, how long it must live, and whether the URL or server is the source of truth.

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TL;DR

I place state with the smallest owner that needs to coordinate it. Temporary input or an open panel can stay local. State shared by nearby siblings can move to their nearest common parent. Filters, sorting, pagination, or a selected record belong in the URL when users need refresh, back and forward navigation, or shareable links. Remote records belong in a server-data cache, while a shared store is useful for client state that spans distant features and has a clear lifecycle.

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State ownership, lifetime, local state, lifted state, URL state, server state, context, global stores, and reset behavior.

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Core answer
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Why this question matters
Many React problems are ownership problems presented as library choices. Putting every value in one global store can be as fragile as hiding shared workflow state deep inside a leaf component.
I place state with the smallest owner that needs to coordinate it. Temporary input or an open panel can stay local. State shared by nearby siblings can move to their nearest common parent. Filters, sorting, pagination, or a selected record belong in the URL when users need refresh, back and forward navigation, or shareable links. Remote records belong in a server-data cache, while a shared store is useful for client state that spans distant features and has a clear lifecycle.
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I separate the value from copies of the value. Server data is not automatically global client state, and derived counts or filtered lists usually do not need storage. Context is useful for stable cross-tree dependencies such as theme or a feature-scoped controller, but frequent broad updates can rerender many consumers. Before lifting state, I define when it initializes, resets, persists, and becomes invalid. Those lifecycle rules prevent old drafts or selections from leaking into another user, tenant, or route.

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Details

Putting every value in a global store by default.
Copying query data into separate writable component state.
Keeping shareable filters only in memory.
Leaving reset behavior to accidental remounting.

How do you decide whether state belongs locally, in a parent, in the URL, in a cache, or in a shared store?

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