
React Query for Efficient Data Fetching (2025 Quickstart)
This article summarizes the DEV post “How to Use React Query for Efficient Data Fetching” and focuses on a minimal, production-ready setup. Why React Query (TanStack Query) Handles fetching, caching, retries, background refresh, and deduping. Removes useEffect + manual loading/error state boilerplate. Scales to pagination, infinite scroll, and SSR hydration. 3-step setup Install: npm install @tanstack/react-query Create a client and wrap your app: import { QueryClient, QueryClientProvider } from "@tanstack/react-query"; const queryClient = new QueryClient(); const App = () => ( <QueryClientProvider client={queryClient}> <MyComponent /> </QueryClientProvider> ); Fetch with useQuery: import { useQuery } from "@tanstack/react-query"; function UsersList() { const { data, isLoading, error } = useQuery({ queryKey: ["users"], queryFn: () => fetch("/api/users").then((r) => r.json()), }); if (isLoading) return <p>Loading…</p>; if (error) return <p>Something went wrong</p>; return <ul>{data.map((u) => <li key={u.id}>{u.name}</li>)}</ul>; } Features you get “for free” Auto refetch on window focus/network reconnect. Stale-while-revalidate caching with configurable TTLs. Retries with exponential backoff for transient failures. Query invalidation to refresh related data after mutations. Devtools for live inspection of query states. Power tips Prefetch likely-next routes to hide latency (e.g., on hover). Use useInfiniteQuery for endless scroll; surface hasNextPage/fetchNextPage. Pass auth tokens via queryFnContext; centralize fetcher. For SSR/Next.js, hydrate with dehydrate/Hydrate to avoid waterfalls. Performance guardrails Set per-query stale times and retry counts to balance freshness vs. load. Log slow queries and cache hit rate; watch INP/LCP when triggering refetches. Keep query keys stable and descriptive (e.g., ["post", postId]). Bottom line: React Query removes state-management overhead for remote data and delivers faster, more resilient UIs with minimal code.

