v2.9.0

[markerikson]

This feature release rewrites RTK Query's internal subscription and polling systems and the useStableQueryArgs hook for better perf, adds automatic AbortSignal handling to requests still in progress when a cache entry is removed, fixes a bug with the transformResponse option for queries, adds a new builder.addAsyncThunk method, and fixes assorted other issues.

Changelog

RTK Query Performance Improvements

We had reports that RTK Query could get very slow when there were thousands of subscriptions to the same cache entry. After investigation, we found that the internal polling logic was attempting to recalculate the minimum polling time after every new subscription was added. This was highly inefficient, as most subscriptions don't change polling settings, and it required repeated O(n) iteration over the growing list of subscriptions. We've rewritten that logic to debounce the update check and ensure a max of one polling value update per tick for the entire API instance.

Related, while working on the request abort changes, testing showed that use of plain Records to hold subscription data was inefficient because we have to iterate keys to check size. We've rewritten the subscription handling internals to use Maps instead, as well as restructuring some additional checks around in-flight requests.

These two improvements drastically improved runtime perf for the thousands-of-subscriptions-one-cache-entry repro, eliminating RTK methods as visible hotspots in the perf profiles. It likely also improves perf for general usage as well.

We've also changed the implementation of our internal useStableQueryArgs hook to avoid calling serializeQueryArgs on its value, which can avoid potential perf issues when a query takes a very large object as its cache key.

Abort Signal Handling on Cleanup

We've had numerous requests over time for various forms of "abort in-progress requests when the data is no longer needed / params change / component unmounts / some expensive request is taking too long". This is a complex topic with multiple potential use cases, and our standard answer has been that we don't want to abort those requests - after all, cache entries default to staying in memory for 1 minute after the last subscription is removed, so RTKQ's cache can still be updated when the request completes. That also means that it doesn't make sense to abort a request "on unmount".

However, it does then make sense to abort an in-progress request if the cache entry itself is removed. Given that, we've updated our cache handling to automatically call the existing resPromise.abort() method in that case, triggering the AbortSignal attached to the baseQuery. The handling at that point depends on your app - fetchBaseQuery should handle that, a custom baseQuery or queryFn would need to listen to the AbortSignal.

We do have an open issue asking for further discussions of potential abort / cancelation use cases and would appreciate further feedback.

New Options

The builder callback used in createReducer and createSlice.extraReducers now has builder.addAsyncThunk available, which allows handling specific actions from a thunk in the same way that you could define a thunk inside createSlice.reducers:

        const slice = createSlice({
          name: 'counter',
          initialState: {
            loading: false,
            errored: false,
            value: 0,
          },
          reducers: {},
          extraReducers: (builder) =>
            builder.addAsyncThunk(asyncThunk, {
              pending(state) {
                state.loading = true
              },
              fulfilled(state, action) {
                state.value = action.payload
              },
              rejected(state) {
                state.errored = true
              },
              settled(state) {
                state.loading = false
              },
            }),
        })

createApi and individual endpoint definitions now accept a skipSchemaValidation option with an array of schema types to skip, or true to skip validation entirely (in case you want to use a schema for its types, but the actual validation is expensive).

Bug Fixes

The infinite query implementation accidentally changed the query internals to always run transformResponse if provided, including if you were using upsertQueryData(), which then broke. It's been fixed to only run on an actual query request.

The internal changes to the structure of the state.api.provided structure broke our handling of extractRehydrationInfo - we've updated that to handle the changed structure.

The infinite query status fields like hasNextPage are now a looser type of boolean initially, rather than strictly false.

TS Types

We now export Immer's WritableDraft type to fix another non-portable types issue.

We've added an api.endpoints.myEndpoint.types.RawResultType types-only field to match the other available fields.

What's Changed

• Add RawResultType as a type-only property on endpoints by @EskiMojo14 in Add RawResultType as a type-only property on endpoints #5037
• allow passing an array of specific schemas to skip by @EskiMojo14 in allow passing an array of specific schemas to skip #5042
• fix(types): re-exporting WritableDraft from immer by @marinsokol5 in fix(types): re-exporting WritableDraft from immer #5015
• Remove Serialisation from useStableQueryArgs by @riqts in Remove Serialisation from useStableQueryArgs #4996
• add addAsyncThunk method to reducer map builder by @EskiMojo14 in add addAsyncThunk method to reducer map builder #5007
• Only run transformResponse when a query is used by @markerikson in Only run transformResponse when a query is used #5049
• Assorted bugfixes for 2.8.3 by @markerikson in Assorted bugfixes for 2.8.3 #5060
• Abort pending requests if the cache entry is removed by @markerikson in Abort pending requests if the cache entry is removed #5061
• Update TS CI config by @markerikson in Update TS CI config #5065
• Rewrite subscription handling and polling calculations for better perf by @markerikson in Rewrite subscription handling and polling calculations for better perf #5064

Full Changelog: v2.8.2...v2.9.0

---

This discussion was created from the release v2.9.0.

[yankinx]

If I set keepUnusedDataFor: 0 on an endpoint,
and in a component call initiate inside a useEffect with the option { subscribe: false },

then the request never returns a response because it gets immediately aborted.

Is this the expected behavior?

[yankinx]

I didn’t use the hook because my form supports asynchronous data population, and I assumed that calling initiate() once inside a function would be enough.

The alternative would have been to use useLazyQuery with its trigger inside the async function that sets the data. But I questioned whether it made sense to keep a hook around across re-renders, since it might run logic I don’t actually need. The first approach felt simpler and more appropriate for my case, though in hindsight it probably wasn’t necessary to avoid the hook.

[markerikson]

Can you show the actual code you're using here so I can understand the behavior better? Or if possible, a CodeSandbox that reproduces this issue?

[yankinx]

Sorry for the delay — here’s an example of usage:
https://codesandbox.io/p/devbox/quizzical-ride-gn4z55

I’m not sure why it shows as Pending in DevTools; on my local setup the request is Canceled.

[markerikson]

Okay, so this is about an async defaultValues callback, then. Hadn't seen anything like that before.

I suppose another workaround here would be to change keepUnusedValues to something short like 1 second.

[yankinx]

Thank you for your help!