Salesforce Lightning Developer Best Practices
As a Salesforce Lightning Developer, building performant, modular, and scalable components is key to delivering exceptional user experiences. While Aura and LWC provide powerful tools, how you use them can make or break your component’s efficiency. Below are some key best practices to keep in mind as you develop in Lightning.
1. Server Calls
Minimize server calls wherever possible. Use Lightning Data Service (LDS) to interact with data without writing Apex. Components like lightning:recordForm, recordViewForm, or recordEditForm can handle CRUD operations efficiently without requiring custom controllers.
2. Styling
Stick to SLDS (Salesforce Lightning Design System) as much as possible. It ensures responsiveness, is supported across releases, and removes the burden of maintaining custom CSS. Use custom or inline CSS only when SLDS can’t meet a specific need.
3. Logging
Console logs are great for debugging, but don’t leave them in your final code. Unnecessary logs take up heap space and can affect component performance. Clear out all debugging logs before deploying.
4. Unbound Expressions
In parent-child communication, use unbound expressions ({!v.attribute} instead of {#v.attribute}) if you don’t want two-way syncing. This avoids the overhead of unnecessary event listeners and constant updates across components.
5. Debug Mode
Avoid enabling Debug Mode unless absolutely necessary. It drastically slows down component performance, and should never be used in production environments.
6. Modularization & Coupling
Build modular, loosely-coupled components. A component should be reusable and self-contained. Avoid placing all logic in one file or component—segregate based on functionality and keep utilities in separate modules for future use.
7. Lazy Loading
Only load the data that’s immediately required. Loading everything up front slows down the initial experience. Fetch additional data only when needed by the user.
8. Caching
Use caching to improve performance and reduce server trips. LDS supports caching out of the box, so prefer it over custom Apex queries when possible.
9. Conditional Rendering
Leverage <aura:if> with boolean flags to conditionally render sections of your component. If the condition evaluates to false, that part of the DOM isn’t even created—saving load time and memory.
10. Event Handling
For component communication:
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Use Component Events for child-to-parent communication.
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Use aura:method or attributes for parent-to-child communication.
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Avoid Application Events unless you’re communicating across unrelated components at the app level.
11. Unwanted JS Libraries
Remove any JavaScript libraries that are no longer used. These unused libraries consume heap memory and delay initialization. If a library might be needed in future, include a minified version and load it only when required.