Compose state and effects

Core principle

Give every piece of UI state one lowest responsible owner, then run imperative work through the effect whose lifecycle follows that owner. Composition renders; state and effects make rendering change safely.

Procedure

1. Establish the requested scope and visible behavioral requirements. Treat an ownership change as a finding only when code or task evidence shows a lifecycle, testability, business, or coordination need.
2. Inventory mutable UI state, app state, event streams, app dependencies, and imperative work in the affected screen or component.
3. Place each state value at its lowest necessary owner: local UI state, hoisted state, a plain UI state holder, or a screen state holder.
4. Keep app wiring and business state at the screen boundary. When a screen holder owns Compose runtime objects, explicitly recommend a separate, previewable content composable that takes immutable state and event callbacks; keep runtime objects in composition or a plain UI state holder. Merely recommending immutable state and intents does not establish that rendering boundary.
5. Choose an effect API whose lifecycle matches the work, and key it by the semantic input that should restart or dispose it.
6. Load the focused reference for every material concern below. Do not use a reference merely because its topic is adjacent.
7. Route frame-rate reads, cross-phase back-writing, and @ReadOnlyComposable contracts to Compose performance.
8. Before responding to a screen-ownership review, verify that the answer explicitly names all three required seams when the visible code needs them: durable data and intents at the screen boundary, runtime UI objects in composition or a plain UI state holder, and a previewable content composable whose inputs are immutable state and event callbacks.
9. Finish when every state value has one owner, every effect has a justified lifecycle and key, and the UI can be previewed and tested without app dependencies. For review-only work, report no change when no evidence-backed issue remains; do not invent product requirements.

Topic router

RED/GREEN agent scenarios

1. RED keeps a component, collected StateFlow, navigation event, and screen layout in one composable. GREEN leaves wiring and effects at the screen boundary and gives plain rendering immutable state plus callbacks.
2. Novel case: a query drives repository suggestions while a list state and focus requester coordinate UI behavior. GREEN puts query and suggestions in the screen state holder, but keeps Compose runtime objects in plain UI state.
3. Counterexample: a one-off expandable badge has one private Boolean. GREEN keeps it local and does not introduce a state holder or an effect.
4. Counterexample: an accessor reads shared snapshot state with no requirement for per-instance independence. GREEN does not invent an ownership leak.