I built a 20 kB React hook that doesn't care which AI you use — here's how streaming actually works

📰 Dev.to · devleo

Learn how to build a lightweight React hook for AI streaming that works with any AI backend, and understand the basics of streaming in this context

intermediate Published 9 May 2026

Action Steps

Build a React hook to handle AI streaming using a library-agnostic approach
Configure the hook to work with different AI backends
Test the hook with various AI services to ensure compatibility
Optimize the hook for performance and minimize dependencies
Integrate the hook into a React application to enable AI-powered features

Who Needs to Know This

Frontend developers and engineers working with React and AI integrations can benefit from this knowledge to build more flexible and scalable applications

Key Insight

💡 Most React AI chat libraries are secretly backend libraries, and a lightweight, library-agnostic hook can be built to stream AI data in React