How do I separate api / async request logic from react components when using recoil - reactjs

Question

So at the moment I am having to put my request / api logic directly into my components because what I need to do a lot of the time is set state based on the response I get from the back end.
Below is a function that I have on my settings page that I use to save the settings to recoil after the user hits save on the form:
const setUserConfig = useSetRecoilState(userAtoms.userConfig);
const submitSettings = async (values: UserConfigInterface) => {
try {
const { data: {data} } = await updateUser(values);
setUserConfig({
...data
});
} catch (error) {
console.log('settings form error: ', error);
}
}
This works perfectly...I just dont want the function in my component as most of my components are getting way bigger than they need to be.
I have tried making a separate file to do this but I can only use the recoil hooks (in this instance useSetRecoilState) inside of components and it just complains when I try and do this outside of a react component.
I have tried implementing this with recoils selector and selectorFamily functions but it gets kind of complicated. Here is how I have tried it inside of a file that has atoms / selectors only:
export const languageProgress = atom<LanguageProgress>({
key: "LanguageProgress",
default: {
level: 1,
xp: 0,
max_xp: 0
}
})
export const languageProgressUpdate = selectorFamily<LanguageProgress>({
key: "LanguageProgress",
get: () => async () => {
try {
const { data: { data } } = await getLanguageProgress();
return data;
} catch (error) {
console.log('get language progress error');
}
},
set: (params:object) => async ({set}) => {
try {
const { data: { data } } = await updateLanguageProgress(params);
set(languageProgress, {
level: data.level,
xp: data.xp,
max_xp: data.max_xp
});
} catch (error) {
console.log('language progress update error: ', error);
}
}
});
What I want to do here is get the values I need from the back end and display it in the front which I can do in the selector function get but now I have 2 points of truth for this...my languageProgress atom will initially be incorrect as its not getting anything from the database so I have to use useGetRevoilValue on the languageProgressUpdate selector I have made but then when I want to update I am updating the atom and not the actual value.
I cannot find a good example anywhere that does what I am trying to here (very suprisingly as I would have thought it is quite a common way to do things...get data from back end and set it in state.) and I can't figure out a way to do it without doing it in the component (as in the first example). Ideally I would like something like the first example but outside of a component because that solution is super simple and works for me.

Answer 1

So I dont know if this is the best answer but it does work and ultimately what I wanted to do was seperate the logic from the screen component.
The answer in my situation is a bit long winded but this is what I used to solve the problem: https://medium.com/geekculture/crud-with-recoiljs-and-remote-api-e36581b77168
Essentially the answer is to put all the logic into a hook and get state from the api and set it there.

Answer 2

get data from back end and set it in state
You may be looking for useRecoilValueLoadable:
"This hook is intended to be used for reading the value of asynchronous selectors. This hook will subscribe the component to the given state."
Here's a quick demonstration of how I've previously used it. To quickly summarise: you pass useRecoilValueLoadable a selector (that you've defined somewhere outside the logic of the component), that selector grabs the data from your API, and that all gets fed back via useRecoilValueLoadable as an array of 1) the current state of the value returned, and 2) the content of that API call.
Note: in this example I'm passing an array of values to the selector each of which makes a separate API call.
App.js
const { state, contents } = useRecoilValueLoadable(myQuery(arr));
if (state.hasValue && contents.length) {
// `map` over the contents
}
selector.js
import { selectorFamily } from 'recoil';
export const myQuery = selectorFamily({
key: 'myQuery',
get: arr => async () => {
const promises = arr.map(async item => {
try {
const response = await fetch(`/endpoint/${item.id}`);
if (response.ok) return response.json();
throw Error('API request not fulfilled');
} catch (err) {
console.log(err);
}
});
const items = await Promise.all(promises);
return items;
}
});