With Tanstack Query

This skill builds on @tanstack/table-core#client-vs-server, getting-started, and table-state. Query owns fetching/cache; Table owns grid state and receives rows already processed by every manual server stage.

Setup

import { keepPreviousData, useQuery } from '@tanstack/react-query'
import { useCreateAtom, useSelector } from '@tanstack/react-store'
import {
  rowPaginationFeature,
  tableFeatures,
  useTable,
} from '@tanstack/react-table'
import type { PaginationState } from '@tanstack/react-table'

const features = tableFeatures({ rowPaginationFeature })
const emptyRows: Array<{ id: string }> = []

function ServerTable() {
  const paginationAtom = useCreateAtom<PaginationState>({
    pageIndex: 0,
    pageSize: 20,
  })
  const pagination = useSelector(paginationAtom, (value) => value)
  const result = useQuery({
    queryKey: ['people', pagination],
    queryFn: async () =>
      fetch(
        `/api/people?page=${pagination.pageIndex}&size=${pagination.pageSize}`,
      ).then(
        (r) =>
          r.json() as Promise<{
            rows: Array<{ id: string }>
            rowCount: number
          }>,
      ),
    placeholderData: keepPreviousData,
  })
  return useTable({
    features,
    columns,
    data: result.data?.rows ?? emptyRows,
    rowCount: result.data?.rowCount,
    atoms: { pagination: paginationAtom },
    manualPagination: true,
  })
}

Core Patterns

Put every server-owned slice in the key

const result = useQuery({
  queryKey: ['people', pagination, sorting, columnFilters],
  queryFn: () => fetchPeople({ pagination, sorting, columnFilters }),
})

Feed the query result directly to Table

const table = useTable({
  features,
  columns,
  data: result.data?.rows ?? emptyRows,
})

Common Mistakes

HIGH Duplicating query rows into state

Wrong:

useEffect(() => setRows(result.data?.rows ?? []), [result.data])
const table = useTable({ features, columns, data: rows })

Correct:

const table = useTable({
  features,
  columns,
  data: result.data?.rows ?? emptyRows,
})

The second state layer can lag behind the query cache and creates an extra synchronization path.

Source: examples/react/with-tanstack-query

HIGH Omitting state from the query key

Wrong:

useQuery({ queryKey: ['people'], queryFn: () => fetchPeople({ pagination }) })

Correct:

useQuery({
  queryKey: ['people', pagination],
  queryFn: () => fetchPeople({ pagination }),
})

Query otherwise reuses cache entries for different server requests.

Source: examples/react/with-tanstack-query

HIGH Expecting manual mode to fetch

Wrong:

useTable({ features, columns, data, manualPagination: true })

Correct:

useTable({
  features,
  columns,
  data: result.data?.rows ?? emptyRows,
  rowCount: result.data?.rowCount,
  manualPagination: true,
})

manualPagination only bypasses client pagination; the application must fetch a processed page and provide its total count.

Source: docs/framework/react/guide/pagination.md

MEDIUM Flashing an empty page during fetch

Wrong:

useQuery({
  queryKey: ['people', pagination],
  queryFn: () => fetchPeople({ pagination }),
})

Correct:

useQuery({
  queryKey: ['people', pagination],
  queryFn: () => fetchPeople({ pagination }),
  placeholderData: keepPreviousData,
})

Preserve the previous page intentionally when an empty loading transition is undesirable.

Source: examples/react/with-tanstack-query

API Discovery

Inspect node_modules/@tanstack/react-table/dist/index.d.ts and the relevant core feature source; inspect the installed @tanstack/react-query source for current query option types.