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awesome-copilot/skills/react18-string-refs/SKILL.md
Saravanan Rajaraman 7f7b1b9b46 feat: Adds React 18 and 19 migration plugin (#1339)
- Adds React 18 and 19 migration orchestration plugins
- Introduces comprehensive upgrade toolkits for migrating legacy React 16/17 and 18 codebases to React 18.3.1 and 19, respectively. Each plugin bundles specialized agents and skills for exhaustive audit, dependency management, class/component API migration, test suite transformation, and batching regression fixes.
- The React 18 toolkit targets class-component-heavy apps, ensures safe lifecycle and context transitions, resolves dependency blockers, and fully automates test migrations including Enzyme removal. The React 19 toolkit addresses breaking changes such as removal of legacy APIs, defaultProps on function components, and forwardRef, while enforcing a gated, memory-resumable migration pipeline.
- Both plugins update documentation, plugin registries, and skill references to support reliable, repeatable enterprise-scale React migrations.
2026-04-09 15:18:52 +10:00

2.1 KiB

name, description
name description
react18-string-refs Provides exact migration patterns for React string refs (ref="name" + this.refs.name) to React.createRef() in class components. Use this skill whenever migrating string ref usage - including single element refs, multiple refs in a component, refs in lists, callback refs, and refs passed to child components. Always use this skill before writing any ref migration code - the multiple-refs-in-list pattern is particularly tricky and this skill prevents the most common mistakes. Use it for React 18.3.1 migration (string refs warn) and React 19 migration (string refs removed).

React 18 String Refs Migration

String refs (ref="myInput" + this.refs.myInput) were deprecated in React 16.3, warn in React 18.3.1, and are removed in React 19.

Quick Pattern Map

Pattern Reference
Single ref on a DOM element → patterns.md#single-ref
Multiple refs in one component → patterns.md#multiple-refs
Refs in a list / dynamic refs → patterns.md#list-refs
Callback refs (alternative approach) → patterns.md#callback-refs
Ref passed to a child component → patterns.md#forwarded-refs

Scan Command

# Find all string ref assignments in JSX
grep -rn 'ref="' src/ --include="*.js" --include="*.jsx" | grep -v "\.test\."

# Find all this.refs accessors
grep -rn "this\.refs\." src/ --include="*.js" --include="*.jsx" | grep -v "\.test\."

Both should be migrated together - find the ref="name" and the this.refs.name accesses for each component as a pair.

The Migration Rule

Every string ref migrates to React.createRef():

  1. Add refName = React.createRef(); as a class field (or in constructor)
  2. Replace ref="refName"ref={this.refName} in JSX
  3. Replace this.refs.refNamethis.refName.current everywhere

Read references/patterns.md for the full before/after for each case.