FE | Profile | Technical Innovation/Debt | Redux Toolkit - Add state management helper library

[adamwhitlock1]

Issue Description

First step in getting some FE tech debt addressed is modernizing the way state is handled in our applications. Using Redux toolkit has been identified as something that would reduce complexity and align our codebase with the recommended way of using Redux in React.

• State management modernization
  • The way that the vets-website FE works with application state is very dated
  • The official react redux docs point towards using redux toolkit (RTK), along with managing async state with RTK query
  • Is this the best way to support application state within our applications?
  • What are the pain points with state management now? Managing feature toggle state, form state, authentication, profile state usable by forms, other application state that could auto-fill form data to reduce burden by users submitting a form.
  • Can some state be abstracted into a better mechanism. Everything doesn't belong in redux and our state store can be pretty bloated with duplicated data.
  • When is a state store too large? How do we slice state and what practices do we encourage to scale our applications when needed
  • react-redux currently at 7.2.6 released Oct 25, 2021. Current version is 9.1.1
  • using the updated version in a discovery branch along with redux toolkit as a MVP of updated setup

Front end tasks

• Start by adding redux toolkit to the main package.json file, and update lock file as well.
• Add process/browser to webpack module resolve.fallback object
  • This prevents issues with the module not being found when use RTK in our applications

Acceptance Criteria

• [x] Package added to global dependencies
• [x] Platform reviews and approves addition of this package
• [x] Further tickets created for implementing RTK in Profile application

[adamwhitlock1]

This is in PR but waiting on acceptance from security/platform review. We have one approval, but will roll this over into next sprint to wait for remaining approval. No points need to carry over though

[adamwhitlock1]

Going to close this out. RTK library is now available for user throughout the platform, and I have created a follow up ticket about initial implementation here: https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/issues/85874