Vue Js Best Practices to Craft Secure & Highly Modular Apps

Last Updated on January 23, 2024

Quick Summary:

When it comes to modern front-end development, Vue.js continues to become more and more widespread as it is a growing sensation and one of the trendiest progressive frameworks for building interactive UIs.

This blog is a cumulative listicle of the Top Vue Js Best Practices to follow along with the security tips and measures to ensure the right-set development of your Vue project.

Top 21 Vue Js Best Practices to Build Robust & Scalable Apps

You might be aware of the basics of the Vue architecture, frontend aspects, javascript features, and other Vue.js constraints and add-ons. However, certain things go unnoticed, and out of mind when putting your learnings into practice. Hence, the below list of Vue Js best practices is a handy guide to stick to when developing modern Vue.js apps.

1. Make sure to use key Inside v-for

Using key attributes along with the directive can help your app to be predictable and persistent; howsoever small changes you make in the data. This is essential, so it’s convenient to track your components and have an accurate reference to your diverse elements.

Without Keys, there’s no surety about how DOM elements can appear, and there isn’t assurance about their predictable behaviors. But, if you maintain to have a unique key for each component, then it’s easy to predict how Vue application will handle DOM manipulation.

<!-- BAD -->
<div v-for=features in features'>  </div>
 
< !-- GOOD! -->
<div v-for= features in features' :key='feature.id'>

2. Use Vuex Actions

In Vuex, an action is responsible for handling asynchronous logic and side effects, such as API requests, before committing mutations to the store. Actions are functions that can call mutations or other actions, and can also return Promises to help with error handling and chaining multiple actions.

Using actions in Vuex has several benefits. First, it helps to separate concerns between different parts of the store. Instead of having complex logic and API calls directly in the mutation or component, actions can handle this work and keep the store and components simpler and more focused. Additionally, actions can be reused across different components and mutations, providing a level of reusability and encapsulation.

Another benefit of using actions is that it can make it easier to handle error cases and asynchronous behavior. By returning Promises from actions, you can more easily handle success and failure cases in your components and mutations, and also chain multiple actions together if needed.

Overall, using actions in Vuex provides a clear separation of concerns, promotes reusability and encapsulation, and simplifies the handling of asynchronous logic and side effects.

3. Naming Commits – Follow a single Convention

Once the application grows, we all are required to browse the history of the components. If you or any of your team member has not followed the same convention to name their commits, it will become critical to identify and understand what each does. Follow the listed below guidelines as one of the Vue js best practices to make your commits easier when you are going through the project history.

Commit Message Format

<type>(<scope>): <subject>
<BLANK LINE>
<body>
<BLANK LINE>
<footer>

Sample:
docs(changelog): update changelog to beta.5
fix(release): need to depend on the latest rxjs and zone.js

To understand in detail how it works, go through this guideline.

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4. Multiple V-Condition

Title can be updated to “Avoid using v-if in the v-for loop”

Using v-if inside a v-for loop can cause performance issues and negatively impact the user experience. This is because v-if will be evaluated for each iteration of the loop, which can lead to unnecessary rendering and DOM updates. Instead, it’s recommended to filter the data before it’s passed to the v-for loop.

For example, let’s say we have an array of users and we want to display only the active ones. Instead of using v-if inside the loop like this:

<template>
  <div>
    <ul>
      <li v-for="user in users" v-if="user.active">{{ user.name }}</li>
    </ul>
  </div>
</template>

We can filter the data in our computed property and then pass it to the v-for loop like this:

<template>
  <div>
    <ul>
      <li v-for="user in activeUsers">{{ user.name }}</li>
    </ul>
  </div>
</template>

<script>
export default {
  data() {
    return {
      users: [
        { name: 'John', active: true },
        { name: 'Jane', active: false },
        { name: 'Bob', active: true }
      ]
    }
  },
  computed: {
    activeUsers() {
      return this.users.filter(user => user.active)
    }
  }
}
</script>

By filtering the data before it’s passed to the v-for loop, we can avoid unnecessary rendering and improve the performance of our application.

5. Third-part packages

When a team of developers is working on the same project, the numbers of installed packages become so high that no one care to pay attention to it. It indirectly affects the performance of the application. To improve the performance, you can use import cost packages to have a look at the imported modular library and identify what’s wrong when it is growing.

6. Stay Consistent – Directive Shorthand

You might have seen this Vue.js best practice as a common technique to use shorthand for directives.

@ for v-on
: for v-bind
# for v-slot

This is one of the favorite practices of our developers. Here, you should be very careful that either you should use them throughout the project or better not use them from the start. These best practices for Vue projects make it more consistent and your code readable.

7. Code Splitting

Code splitting is a technique used to improve the performance of web applications. It involves breaking the code into smaller chunks that can be loaded on demand. This can greatly reduce the initial load time of the application and improve the overall user experience.

In Vue.js, code splitting can be achieved through lazy loading. Lazy loading allows you to only load the code that is necessary for a specific route or component, rather than loading all of the code upfront.

For example, consider a Vue.js application with multiple routes. By lazy loading the components for each route, you can reduce the initial load time of the application. Similarly, by lazy loading components that are only used in specific parts of the application, you can reduce the overall bundle size and improve performance.

Here is an example of lazy loading a route in Vue.js:

const routes = [
  {
    path: '/dashboard',
    component: () => import('./views/Dashboard.vue')
  }
]

In this example, the Dashboard.vue component is only loaded when the user navigates to the /dashboard route.

8. Routing

At the time of building SPAs, it is most common to use client-side routing. Vue does not ship on built-in routing as it has official plugin called VueRouter and it so easy to work with and provides all the functionalities that you need to build a powerful application. Incase if you are using the VueCLI, you can add it to your application without installing npm-install Vue-router.

9. Use refs instead of accessing DOM elements directly

When working with Vue.js, it’s important to follow best practices and avoid accessing DOM elements directly whenever possible. Instead, Vue.js provides the $refs property as a way to access elements within the component’s template. By using $refs, you can maintain the reactive nature of Vue.js and avoid issues that may arise from manipulating the DOM directly. Additionally, $refs allow for better encapsulation and easier testing of your Vue.js components.

While programming on the Vue application, by all means, you should avoid accessing the DOM directly. Instead, you should use $refs. It is an ideal way to access the DOM, is more maintainable, and you are no more required to depend on specific class names.

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10. Add multiple classes to an element

One of the best things about Vue is it makes so convenient to add dynamic class to an element

//Add class red if isError is true
<div :class=”{'red': isError}”></div>

A different yet most common and easy approach is;

// Add to classes if two properties return true
<div :class="{'red': isError, 'text-bold': isActive }”></div>

11. kebab-case for event names

At the time of emitting and listening to custom events, make sure to use kebab-case. Kebab-case helps to transfer the events into lowercase. Nobody listens to an event in PascalCase or camelCase, so you should declare the event in a way you will going to listen to it: in kebab-case.

// Emitting
this.$emit('my-event') // instead of myEvent

// Listening
v-on:my-event

12. Use Selectors

It is better explained with code:

// We have this selector
export const language = (state) => state.userConfig.language;// In one of our actions, we need language:
// Bad
[GET_GAMES]({ commit, rootState }) {
   const lang = rootState.userConfig.language;
   // Do stuff...
}
// Good
[GET_GAMES]({ commit, rootState }) {
   const lang = language(rootState);
   // Do stuff...
}

Source: Github

13. Validate your Props

Now that you know this one, you will find this one as the best VueJS Tips to follow. When you are working on a large-scale project, it is not possible to remember the type, format, and conventions that you have used in a prop. So considering the below example in a similar way, you can write prop validation.

props: {
  status: {
    type: String,
    required: true,
    validator: function (value) {
      return [
        'syncing',
        'synced',
        'version-conflict',
        'error'
      ].indexOf(value) !== -1
    }
  }
}

Source: Vue– Style Guide

14. Appropriate Structure

Vue has not any default way to structure the application unless you are using Nuxt. So it demands you and your team to be a very organized developer(s) to create an understandable structure, because changing it later is even more stressful and hustle.

15. Clean up after yourself

At the time of designing SPA, it is quite obvious to build up memory usage; if you don’t eliminate instances, intervals, custom events, then there are chances that your app will become slow or maybe unresponsive. This could look something like:

created() {
  refreshUserLoginTokenInterval(); //At created we start an interval to refresh
},
beforeDestroy () {
  destroyUserLoginInterval(); //Before component is destroyed, we clean up
}

To know more about avoiding memory leaks, please go through this cookbook.

Vue Js Best Practices For Security

As web applications built using Vue.js become increasingly popular, ensuring the security of these applications is of paramount importance. Vue Js security best practices can help developers protect their applications from common security threats, such as cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injection, and session hijacking.

Failure to properly secure a Vue.js application can lead to data breaches, unauthorized access to sensitive information, and reputational damage. By implementing security best practices in your Vue application, you can ensure that your app remains protected against potential security threats.

16. Avoid Using v-html

The v-html directive allows for rendering of raw HTML, which can introduce security vulnerabilities if user input is not properly sanitized. Instead, use computed properties or methods to sanitize user input and display it as text. If rendering HTML is absolutely necessary, consider using a library like DOMPurify to sanitize the HTML before rendering it.

17. Server-Side Authentication And Authorization

Client-side authentication and authorization can be easily bypassed by attackers, so it’s important to implement server-side authentication and authorization for your Vue.js project. Use established authentication protocols like OAuth or JWT, and ensure that all sensitive data and API endpoints are properly secured.

18. Use HTTPS

HTTPS encrypts all data transmitted between the client and the server, preventing eavesdropping and man-in-the-middle attacks. Always use HTTPS for your Vue.js project, and ensure that your SSL certificate is up to date and properly configured.

19. Sanitize User Input

User input should never be trusted, and should always be sanitized on the server side before being stored or displayed. Use a library like DOMPurify to sanitize user input and prevent injection attacks like cross-site scripting (XSS).

20. Keep Dependencies Up To Date

Outdated dependencies can contain security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by attackers. Regularly update your project’s dependencies, and use a dependency management tool like npm or Yarn to ensure that you are using the latest stable versions of all packages. Monitor for security alerts and patches, and apply updates promptly to stay protected against emerging threats.

21. Validate Input From Users

It is important to validate input from users to prevent attacks such as cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection. Vue provides various options for data validation, such as computed properties, watchers, and custom directives. These can be used to ensure that user input meets certain criteria.

Wrapping Up

So, the above listed are the essential Vue Js best practices that one must take into consideration to create stunning Vue.js applications in 2024.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why is Vue.js so popular?

First of all, Vue.js is lightweight, modular, flexible and high performant. Due to the more flexible and less opinionated solution, Vue.js performs so smoothly and allows you to structure your application at your convenience instead of being forced like other front-end frameworks. Being one of the trendiest front-end frameworks and the growing developer community worldwide Vue.js is gaining more traction every month.

What is Vue used for?

Vue is an open-source progressive javascript framework that is mostly used to build web interfaces and SPAs. Unlike other front-end frameworks, Vue.js is not backed by big tech companies. Along with the web interfaces, Vue.js is also used for mobile and desktop application development with the help of Electron framework.

What are Vue components?

Vue.js is a component-based approach that allows you to build interactive user interfaces. This is the reason why Vue components are considered as the most powerful features of Vue.js. Components are custom elements that allow you to break your application into smaller and reusable parts to build user interfaces out of the complicated structure.