How to delay UnityContext instantiation? + Best practices with redux question

[cheryllium]

Hi Jeffrey! Thank you so much for your work on this fantastic library.

In the first example in the docs, the UnityContext object is instantiated as a global const variable, and then used as a prop in the same file. But in my application, I don't want to create and load the UnityContext object immediately, I want it to only happen in response to a specific Redux action.

My current approach is to use a middleware to create the UnityContext object and add it to the Redux store. Then, the component which needs to render it will get it from the Redux state as a prop using mapStateToProps(). (I can explain this in more detail if this is too vague, just let me know.)

This does work, but it requires putting a mutable object into the Redux store: the UnityContext object, which may be mutated elsewhere by its own methods. I'd rather use a different approach and keep Redux state fully immutable. I'm curious how would you approach this problem?
(The only other idea I had was to store it in window.unityContext or similar, so it becomes available in the global scope, but this also seems like a bad practice. In addition, I have not managed to get this working yet.)

Finally, I would appreciate so much any insights anyone may have about my approach using Redux middleware... It's unclear to me what consequences may occur from placing a mutable object in a Redux store, as long as it's not being mutated from the reducers themselves, which are still pure functions in my approach. Could this have performance implications, or trigger unexpected re-renders?

Thank you again!

[jasoncarr0]

Finally, I would appreciate so much any insights anyone may have about my approach using Redux middleware... It's unclear to me what consequences may occur from placing a mutable object in a Redux store, as long as it's not being mutated from the reducers themselves, which are still pure functions in my approach. Could this have performance implications, or trigger unexpected re-renders?

This doesn't answer the rest of your question, but there are a few docs on this point (look at the detailed explanations):
https://redux.js.org/style-guide/style-guide#do-not-mutate-state
https://redux.js.org/style-guide/style-guide#do-not-put-non-serializable-values-in-state-or-actions

[cheryllium]

I've currently got a working implementation which simply places it on the window, like window.unityContext .. This is working, and it is better than having it in Redux state, but still does not seem like the best solution. Is it possible that React+Redux simply don't offer a way to do this? I found some material about creating global class instances in middleware for persistent connections, but nothing explaining how to then pass it to a component elsewhere for rendering.