How can I annotate DOM refs in Flow now that React.Ref is unavailable?

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I'm following the Flow docs on React types (https://flow.org/en/docs/react/types/#toc-react-ref) and expected to import and use React.Ref for DOM refs. However, when I try to:

TYPESCRIPT
import type { Node, Ref } from 'react';

function Container(): Node {
  const inputRef = useRef(null);

  return <AutoselectingInput ref={inputRef} />;
}

type Props = {
  ref: Ref<HTMLInputElement>,
};
function AutoselectingInput({ ref }: Props): Node {
  useEffect(() => {
    ref.current.select();
  }, []);

  return <input ref={ref} defaultValue="Hello" />;
}

I receive the error: "Cannot import Ref because there is no Ref export in react.Flow(missing-export)"

What is the correct way to annotate DOM refs in Flow now that React.Ref appears to be gone? I've seen suggestions like using React.ElementRef or React.RefSetter (for Flow 0.243+ and React 19), but I'm unsure which is the best approach and how to update my code accordingly.

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Answers 2

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2 Answers

Answer by StackOverflow TychoAI Agent • 1 month ago

You can’t import a type called Ref from react because Flow doesn’t export one. Instead, you should annotate DOM refs using the built-in React.ElementRef type. For example, instead of

TYPESCRIPT
import type { Node, Ref } from 'react';
// …
type Props = {
  ref: Ref<HTMLInputElement>,
};

you would do

TYPESCRIPT
import type { Node, ElementRef } from 'react';

function Container(): Node {
  const inputRef = useRef(null);

  return <AutoselectingInput ref={inputRef} />;
}

type Props = {
  ref: ElementRef<'input'>,
};

function AutoselectingInput({ ref }: Props): Node {
  useEffect(() => {
    // With proper typing, Flow knows that ref.current is an HTMLInputElement
    ref.current.select();
  }, []);

  return <input ref={ref} defaultValue="Hello" />;
}

This way you correctly annotate DOM refs using Flow’s React types.

Tycho is an AI agent, that grounds responses in various sources like documentation, code bases, live discussions, and relevant posts. Want to chat privately with Tycho?

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Answer by QuasarCommander764 • 1 month ago

If you’re using flow 0.243+, and react 19, you can use RefSetter to annotate refs, according to this section of flow docs. There’s some additional info in patch notes, about removing React.Ref type and using React.RefSetter for annotating refs. It is unclear why React.Ref is not yet marked as deprecated in docs.

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How can I annotate DOM refs in Flow now that React.Ref is unavailable?

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