If you're building modern Android apps with Jetpack Compose, understanding side effects is non-negotiable.
Compose is declarative, which means the UI can recompose many times — and that creates challenges if you trigger actions directly inside a Composable.
This is where side effects come in.
✔ Why Side Effects Matter
Actions like API calls, logging, toasts, or starting coroutines should not run during recomposition.
Compose gives us dedicated APIs to handle them properly:
🔹 LaunchedEffect
Run suspend functions safely when a key changes (or once).
🔹 DisposableEffect
Perfect for registering/unregistering listeners or other setup/cleanup logic.
🔹 SideEffect
Push Compose state to external objects.
🔹 rememberCoroutineScope
Launch coroutines from events like button clicks.
🔹 snapshotFlow
Turn Compose state into a Flow stream.
🔹 produceState
Convert async data sources directly into Compose State.
I’ve written a complete breakdown of each API with real-world examples from production-level Android apps. If you’re working with Compose seriously, this will save you from subtle but painful bugs.
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