It’s a familiar scenario for many React developers: components that start off beautifully clean and intuitive can quickly devolve into intricate “spaghetti monsters” as new features and requirements are introduced. What begins as a straightforward piece of code can, in a matter of days, become a tangled mess that challenges even the most seasoned developers.

When initially building a React application, especially for simpler forms like a sign-in page, the temptation is strong to keep all related logic—state management, event handlers, and validation—within the same component file. This approach often seems perfectly acceptable at first; the code is concise, easy to read, and everything appears to be working smoothly.

However, the reality of application development is growth. Features rarely stay static. One day, it’s a new input field; the next, it’s complex validation rules, followed by an API integration, and then comprehensive error handling. Before you know it, that once-pristine component has swelled into an intimidating monolith, difficult to understand and even harder to maintain without significant effort.

This continuous expansion is the true test for your codebase. Without a proactive strategy, the clarity and readability of your components will inevitably be buried under the weight of accumulating features. This is precisely where the principles of “separation of concerns” and the strategic use of “custom hooks” emerge as indispensable tools.

The guiding principle should be to keep your React components focused primarily on presentation – acting as “dumb” components that simply receive and display data, and trigger actions. All the heavy lifting, such as managing form state, implementing validation rules, and handling side-effects, should be encapsulated within dedicated custom hooks. This architectural shift allows developers to quickly grasp how a form or feature operates by examining its associated hook, rather than sifting through a convoluted component file.

It’s also important to remember a crucial detail: most React hooks are designed for client-side execution and cannot be directly invoked within server components. Adhering to this pattern not only enhances readability and maintainability but also promotes code reusability and significantly streamlines the development process for evolving applications.