This is the first episode in a new series on SharePoint Framework development. Before getting into building example web parts, I wanted to lay the groundwork by walking through the tool chain I’ve settled on after years of working with different libraries and approaches — the combination that’s made SPFx development both more efficient and more enjoyable for me.
PnPjs
The foundation. If you’re doing any kind of SharePoint development, this library is essential. PnPjs is a JavaScript library built specifically to simplify coding against SharePoint, and its standout feature is how it interacts with SharePoint REST services with far less code.
Instead of writing long, complex REST calls and handling all the incidental complexity of SharePoint development by hand, PnPjs gives you an intuitive, chainable method syntax that lets you work far more efficiently. It’s also community-driven, so it’s continuously updated and improved by the SharePoint community.
SWR
A game changer for data handling. SWR stands for stale-while-revalidate, a strategy for efficient data fetching and caching.
It works through a React hook for loading and updating data seamlessly: it first returns cached data (the “stale” part), then fetches fresh data from SharePoint in the background (the “revalidate” part). That means users see something immediately while still getting the most up-to-date information.
The benefits:
- Efficient data handling that keeps your app feeling fast
- Automatic updates that simplify data mutation and refetching
- React Suspense integration that leverages React’s built-in loading states for a smoother experience
Yup
For validation, I rely heavily on Yup — a JavaScript schema builder for value parsing and validation that works seamlessly with form libraries like React Hook Form.
What I love about Yup is its declarative approach: you write validation rules in a clear, readable format that’s easy to understand and maintain. It also includes built-in type casting, automatically converting input values to the correct type.
React Hook Form
My go-to library for managing form state and validation in React. And when you’re building SPFx web parts, you’re often dealing with forms.
React Hook Form leverages React Hooks to handle forms simply and efficiently, and the performance benefits are significant:
- Minimizes re-renders, so forms feel snappy and responsive
- Reduces boilerplate significantly, making form handling more straightforward
- Flexible and integrates easily with other libraries and custom components
Hook Form Resolvers
The @hookform/resolvers package integrates external validation libraries — Yup, Zod, Joi, and others — with React Hook Form. That integration simplifies your code, improves maintainability by cutting boilerplate, and gives you the flexibility to swap validation libraries as needed.
React Error Boundary
Error handling is crucial in any application. There have been plenty of times I’ve been working on something, hit a bug, and the whole screen just went blank with no indication of what happened.
React Error Boundary gives you a reusable component that catches errors in your component tree and displays a fallback UI instead of a blank page — a big improvement for the user experience. It also lets you capture and log errors for easier debugging, and gives you flexibility with custom fallback components and error recovery options.
Putting it together
That’s the tool chain: PnPjs for SharePoint interactions, SWR for data management, Yup and React Hook Form with resolvers for handling and validation, and React Error Boundary for robust error handling. My approach is to use these to build a generic web part that can cover many different use cases — making it more reusable and valuable across projects.
Next up in this series, I’ll be building example SPFx web parts using this tool chain. If there’s a specific web part you’d like to see, or a use case or challenge you’re working through, let me know — I’d love to hear about it.