The Cost of Complexity: Why I'm Moving Away from Global State

In the early days of a React project, it is tempting to dump everything into a global store. It feels organized. But three years later, you're debugging a toggle button that somehow triggers a user profile refresh. This post explores the 'state colocation' pattern, where we keep data as close to the component as possible. I discuss a recent refactor where moving 60% of our global state to local context reduced re-renders by half and made the onboarding process for new juniors significantly easier.