Table State (Vanilla JS) Guide

Examples#

Want to skip to the implementation? Check out these examples:

• Basic

• Sorting

• Pagination

Table State (Vanilla JS) Guide#

If you boil TanStack Table down to one sentence: TanStack Table is a large state-management coordinator for table states.

Understanding this guide is fundamental to understanding how TanStack Table works and how to interact with it for the best results.

Do you need to Manage External State?#

When you use @tanstack/table-core directly, there is no framework adapter to render UI or subscribe a component tree for you. The core table still manages state with TanStack Store atoms, but you decide when to read state, subscribe to state, and redraw your UI.

You usually do NOT need to manage table state yourself. If you pass nothing to initialState, atoms, state, or any of the on[State]Change table options, TanStack Table will manage its own state internally. There will be situations where you need to customize how you interact with the internal table state, or even hoist it up to your own scopes.

State in v9#

TanStack Table v9 overhauled state management around TanStack Store. TanStack Store uses the alien-signals implementation and supports performant derived state. In vanilla usage, you provide the core store reactivity bindings explicitly.

A table instance has a few state surfaces:

• table.baseAtoms are the internal writable atoms created from the resolved initial state.

• table.atoms are readonly derived atoms exposed per registered state slice.

• table.store is a readonly flat TanStack Store derived by putting all of the registered table.atoms together.

  For vanilla or non-framework use, pass storeReactivityBindings() through the table's coreReactivityFeature. Table APIs that call atom .get() read current values synchronously. UI updates are your responsibility; subscribe to atoms or table.store and redraw as needed.

Feature-based State#

State slices are only created for the features that are registered in features. This keeps TanStack Table tree-shakeable and gives TypeScript more accurate state inference.

const features = tableFeatures({
  rowPaginationFeature,
  rowSortingFeature,
  paginatedRowModel: createPaginatedRowModel(),
  sortedRowModel: createSortedRowModel(),
  sortFns,
})

const table = constructTable({
  features: {
    coreReactivityFeature: storeReactivityBindings(),
    ...features,
  },
  columns,
  data,
})

table.atoms.pagination.get()
table.atoms.sorting.get()

// table.atoms.rowSelection // TypeScript error unless rowSelectionFeature is registered

If features does not include a feature, its state should not be available in table.atoms, table.store.state, initialState, state, or atoms.

Accessing Table State#

There are two different questions when reading table state:

• Do you only need the current value?

• Or should your UI redraw when that value changes?

  Use a direct atom or store read for the current value. Use store or atom subscriptions when you want to redraw in response to changes.

Reading State Without Subscribing#

The simplest and most performant way to read a current state value is to read the matching atom:

const pagination = table.atoms.pagination.get()
const sorting = table.atoms.sorting.get()

You can also read the current flat store snapshot:

const tableState = table.store.state
const pagination = table.store.state.pagination

These reads do not redraw anything by themselves. If the UI needs to stay reactive to table state changes, subscribe to table.store, subscribe to a specific atom, or use a TanStack Store selector in your own adapter layer.

Reading Reactive State with Store Subscriptions#

Subscribe to table.store when your UI should redraw for table state changes:

const subscription = table.store.subscribe(() => {
  renderTable(table)
})

// later
subscription.unsubscribe()

You can also subscribe to a single atom:

const subscription = table.atoms.pagination.subscribe(() => {
  renderPagination(table.atoms.pagination.get())
})

Setting Table State#

You should almost never need to set table state directly. TanStack Table features expose dedicated APIs for interacting with their state, and those APIs are the safest way to make changes.

table.nextPage()
table.previousPage()
table.setPageIndex(0)
table.setPageSize(25)

Use APIs like table.setSorting(...), table.setColumnFilters(...), column.toggleVisibility(), or row.toggleSelected() instead of manually editing the underlying state object.

If you only care about setting starting values, use initialState. If you want to reset a state slice back to its initial value, use that feature's reset API.

If you really do need to write a state slice directly, the low-level write surface for internally owned state is the matching base atom:

table.baseAtoms.pagination.set((old) => ({
  ...old,
  pageIndex: 0,
}))

Direct base atom writes should be rare. If a slice is owned by an external atom passed through atoms, write to that external atom instead; table.atoms.pagination will read from the external atom, not the internal base atom.

Custom Initial State#

If you only need to customize the starting value for some table state, use initialState. You still do not need to manage that state yourself.

initialState only applies to registered state slices. It is used to create the table's initial state and is also used by reset APIs such as table.resetSorting() or table.resetPagination(). Changing the initialState object later does not reset table state.

const table = constructTable({
  features: {
    coreReactivityFeature: storeReactivityBindings(),
    ...features,
  },
  columns,
  data,
  initialState: {
    sorting: [
      {
        id: 'age',
        desc: true,
      },
    ],
    pagination: {
      pageIndex: 0,
      pageSize: 25,
    },
  },
})

Note: Do not provide the same state slice in multiple ownership places unless you intentionally want one to win. For a slice like pagination, prefer exactly one of initialState.pagination, atoms.pagination, or state.pagination as the source of truth. External atoms take precedence over external state; external state syncs into the table's internal base atom.

Resetting to Initial State#

Feature reset APIs reset to table.initialState by default. Many reset APIs also accept true to reset to that feature's blank/default state instead:

table.resetSorting()
table.resetPagination()
table.resetPagination(true)

Slice reset APIs like resetPagination() update through that feature's state updater and can update an externally owned atom. The core table.reset() API resets the internal base atoms, so do not use it as the primary way to reset state that is owned by external atoms.

Controlled State#

If you need easy access to table state outside the table, you can control individual state slices. In vanilla usage, external atoms are usually the cleanest way to share table state between the table and your own UI code.

External Atoms#

Use external atoms when the app should own one or more table state slices. Create stable writable atoms with createAtom from @tanstack/store, pass them to atoms, and subscribe or read from them wherever your app needs the value.

import { createAtom } from '@tanstack/store'
import {
  constructTable,
  rowPaginationFeature,
  tableFeatures,
  type PaginationState,
} from '@tanstack/table-core'
import { storeReactivityBindings } from '@tanstack/table-core/store-reactivity-bindings'

const features = tableFeatures({
  rowPaginationFeature,
})

const paginationAtom = createAtom<PaginationState>({
  pageIndex: 0,
  pageSize: 10,
})

const table = constructTable({
  features: {
    coreReactivityFeature: storeReactivityBindings(),
    ...features,
  },
  columns,
  data,
  atoms: {
    pagination: paginationAtom,
  },
  manualPagination: true,
})

paginationAtom.subscribe(() => {
  renderPagination(paginationAtom.get())
})

When using the atoms option for a slice, you do not need to add the matching on[State]Change option.

External State#

The classic state plus on[State]Change pattern is still supported. This can be convenient when you already have a plain external state object, but it is less atomic than external atoms.

const features = tableFeatures({
  rowPaginationFeature,
  paginatedRowModel: createPaginatedRowModel(),
})

let pagination: PaginationState = {
  pageIndex: 0,
  pageSize: 10,
}

const table = constructTable({
  features: {
    coreReactivityFeature: storeReactivityBindings(),
    ...features,
  },
  columns,
  data,
  state: {
    pagination,
  },
  onPaginationChange: (updater) => {
    pagination = updater instanceof Function ? updater(pagination) : updater
    table.setOptions((prev) => ({
      ...prev,
      state: {
        ...prev.state,
        pagination,
      },
    }))
    renderTable(table)
  },
})

The v8-style onStateChange option is no longer part of the v9 core state model. v9 encourages keeping table state slices atomic and separated for performance.

On State Change Callbacks#

The on[State]Change callbacks are useful when you are controlling a matching slice through the state option. They receive either a raw value or an updater function.

If you provide an on[State]Change callback, also provide the corresponding value in state. For example, onSortingChange should be paired with state.sorting.

onPaginationChange: (updater) => {
  pagination = updater instanceof Function ? updater(pagination) : updater
}

State Types#

Most complex states in TanStack Table have their own TypeScript types that you can import and use.

import {
  constructTable,
  type PaginationState,
  type RowSelectionState,
  type SortingState,
  type TableState,
} from '@tanstack/table-core'

let sorting: SortingState = [
  {
    id: 'age',
    desc: true,
  },
]

TableState<typeof features> is inferred from the features registered on that table:

type MyTableState = TableState<typeof features>