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Differences from React

AI.JSX is not React, although it seamlessly integrates with it. It's more similar to React Server Components than React Client Components.

Instead, AI.JSX is a componentized, type-safe system for composing your prompts and controlling the flow of your LLM-based app.

React is stateful; AI.JSX is stateless​

In React, your JSX becomes a stateful tree, which is mounted into the DOM. For instance:

function Counter() {
  const [count, setCount] = useState(0);
  return (
    <>
      Count: {count}
      <button onClick={() => setCount((count) => count + 1)}>Increment</button>
    </>
  );
}

When you render this component, it lives in the DOM, maintaining state, and moving through a lifecycle.

In AI.JSX, there's no lifecycle. Your component is stateless and renders exactly once.

AI.JSX is async / streaming native​

In React, client components must be synchronous. Server components can return promises.

In AI.JSX, components can return promises, or generators:

async function MyAsyncComponent() {
  const data = await loadData();
  const formattedData = processData(data);
  return <UserMessage>Please summarize: {formattedData}</UserMessage>;
}

You can embed promises directly in JSX:

function MyAsyncComponent() {
  return <UserMessage>Please summarize: {loadData()}</UserMessage>;
}

For more detail, see Rules of AI.JSX.

Context is different​

In React Client Components, you use useContext to access context. In React Server Components, you can't use context.

In AI.JSX, there's a similar concept of context.