Reactive Meals

Overview

Deliberate no-Redux exercise in cart state management. Menu browsing, add/remove/update quantity, checkout totals, all through Context + useReducer with a reducer designed to prevent impossible states. Answer to a question I kept asking: when is a global store overkill? For a single-feature cart on Netlify, built-in hooks often are enough.

Role

Deliberate no-Redux exercise using Context + useReducer only for cart state.

Scope

Menu browsing, cart mutations, quantity updates, and checkout totals with reducer design preventing impossible states and context re-render isolation.

Technologies

Key Learnings

• React Hooks patterns
• Context API for state management
• useReducer for complex state

Challenges & Solutions

• Designing a scalable reducer structure for cart operations (add, remove, update quantity)
• Preventing context re-renders from affecting unrelated components
• Managing complex state transitions without introducing bugs