[ngrilly]

I mostly agree, but having used Linear.app which has a crazy good and fast UI based on a local database synced with their cloud database, I'm not sure anymore: https://youtu.be/WxK11RsLqp4?t=2170.

I think it's important to define early in a project if the app is "cloud-based" or "local-based". If it's cloud-based, then only the server mutates state and sends views to the clients, as you wrote. Everything is simple. If it's local-based, then all data are available locally and mutated locally. The cloud is only used as mirror/backup and can support for some advanced features like full-text search. That's also a very clear architecture. That's how Linear works.

Things become hairy and unnecessarily complex when no clear choice is made between those two options, then it's not clear where the state is.