Proposal: Official Lightweight React DOM Renderer for Non-Browser Environments (e.g. CLI, PDF, Canvas)

[YuXing404]

Hi React team and community,
I've been exploring ways to use React in non-DOM environments like the command line (e.g. with ink) and PDF generation (react-pdf), and I'm amazed by how flexible React's reconciler architecture is. However, each of these projects reimplements a custom renderer, which can be hard to maintain as React evolves.

Idea:

Would it be worth considering the development (or official endorsement) of a minimal, general-purpose renderer for non-DOM environments?

This could:

• Provide a common base or reference implementation for CLI, PDF, Canvas, or even Game UI renderers.
• Make it easier to build and maintain new renderers for niche use cases.
• Help test the core React reconciler against more than just React DOM and React Native.

What it could look like:

• A react-generic-renderer package that renders to an in-memory tree.
• Optional hooks to define custom output (e.g. onRender(element)).
• Provide examples or extensions for CLI, canvas, or text-based rendering.

Questions for discussion:

• Has this idea been discussed or attempted before?
• Would this align with React's long-term goals, or is this better left to third-party maintainers?
• What would be the best way to structure such a project for community contribution?

I’d love to hear the community’s thoughts on this — happy to help or collaborate if others are interested in this too.

Thanks for reading!

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[Sumdiboii]

Hey! This is a really interesting idea, and I think a general-purpose renderer for non-DOM environments could be super valuable — especially for niche use cases like CLI tools, PDFs, or canvas-based apps.

Right now, projects like ink and react-pdf have to maintain their own custom renderers, which means a lot of repeated effort and risk of breaking changes whenever React’s internal APIs shift. Having a lightweight, base renderer (maybe something like react-generic-renderer) that handles the core reconciliation but lets you define how elements are rendered would definitely help reduce that friction.

I haven’t seen anything like this officially endorsed by the React team yet, but I think it aligns with React’s long-term vision of being platform-agnostic. If nothing else, it could serve as a great reference or starter kit for other developers looking to build renderers.

I’d definitely be interested in seeing how this could be structured — sounds like a project with real potential!