Concepts

Understanding these three ideas will make everything else click.

Why backend-agnostic?

Most AI chat libraries are secretly backend libraries. react-ai-stream is different: the hook speaks a simple SSE protocol that any server can produce. Your LLM, your infra, your API keys — the hook doesn't care.

Streaming lifecycle

When a message is sent, tokens arrive incrementally and are appended to the message in real time. Understanding the lifecycle — onToken, onComplete, onError, abort — helps you write correct side-effects.

Hook architecture

Every useAIChat call creates a completely isolated message store. Multiple chat instances on the same page never share state. No context providers needed unless you explicitly want shared state.