In React 17, there is no need to add import React into each file. This is due to the advancements in the refresh mechanism in React. Rather than using the react-refresh mechanism (with react-hot-loader), React 17 now uses the Fast refresh feature.

The fast refresh feature has the following features:

• the component state is maintained between refreshes
• page reloads when errors are resolved
• the whole page reloads when data outside of the React tree is updated

Things that it doesn’t do:

• Fast refresh is for functional components only.

I purposely made that list item as it is quite a big point. Especially as many React developers will still be dealing with applications that share class and functional components.

So it is time to say goodbye to import react:

import react from 'React';

and hello to slightly less code in your components.

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