Thunk

In the context of Redux, a thunk is a function that wraps an expression to delay its evaluation. More specifically, the Redux Thunk middleware allows action creators to return functions (thunks) instead of plain action objects. This enables developers to write asynchronous logic inside action creators—such as API calls or other side effects—before dispatching actual actions to the store.

Normally, Redux expects action creators to return objects:

js
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const increment = () => ({ type: 'INCREMENT' });
With Redux Thunk, you can return a function instead:
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const fetchUser = () => {
  return async (dispatch) => {
    dispatch({ type: 'USER_FETCH_REQUEST' });
    try {
      const response = await fetch('/api/user');
      const data = await response.json();
      dispatch({ type: 'USER_FETCH_SUCCESS', payload: data });
    } catch (error) {
      dispatch({ type: 'USER_FETCH_FAILURE', error });
    }
  };
};

This pattern is crucial in real-world Redux applications where you need to perform async operations like fetching data or conditional dispatching. Thunks have access to both dispatch and getState, giving them flexibility to manage side effects and control flow.

While more advanced tools like Redux Toolkit and RTK Query now offer alternatives, thunks remain a foundational concept for understanding asynchronous flows in Redux.

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