Migrating a pota app across versions

Use this when updating code that uses pota — bumping the dependency, or fixing an app that calls an API pota removed, renamed, or changed. It collects the migrations you're most likely to hit; when something here is unclear or missing, the installed pota source is the ground truth (see the end).

Scope it: find the pota version the app is on and the one it's moving to, then apply every change below tagged with a version in that range. The big, every-app migrations follow.

createPartial — inlined DOM walk (0.22.236)

The compiled JSX output navigates the cloned template directly (root.firstChild.nextSibling…) instead of walking it at runtime, so createPartial no longer takes the props-index → walk-index map. The preset and runtime ship together — recompiling the app is the whole migration. Only code calling createPartial directly changes: the second argument keeps only x (xmlns) and i (importNode), and the partial takes one function receiving the cloned root (or the DocumentFragment for multi-node content) instead of an array of per-element functions.

// before
const partial = createPartial('<p></p><span></span>', { 0: 1, m: 2 })
partial([node => { /* <span> */ }])

// after
const partial = createPartial('<p></p><span></span>')
partial(node => {
	const span = node.firstChild.nextSibling
	/* … */
})

Component props are frozen only in dev mode (0.22.236)

Object.freeze(props) on component creation is now a dev-only guard. In production, writing to props no longer throws — enable dev mode to keep the check while developing:

// once, before rendering — e.g. the app entry
import 'pota/dev'

Bundlers that select pota/jsx-dev-runtime for development builds (jsx: 'automatic' with development: true — Vite dev serve does) enable it automatically; their production builds import pota/jsx-runtime and stay on the fast path. Correct code needs no migration — only code relying on the production TypeError when mutating props behaves differently.

Babel preset requires Babel 8 (0.22.235)

pota/babel-preset now peer-depends on Babel 8 (@babel/* ^8.0.0). Babel 8 is ESM-only and requires Node ^22.18.0 || >=24.11.0. This is a toolchain bump only — the JSX → partials output is unchanged, so no app code changes. Bump the Babel packages the app provides for the preset:

// before — package.json
"@babel/core": "^7",
"@babel/helper-module-imports": "^7",
"@babel/helper-plugin-utils": "^7",
"@babel/plugin-syntax-jsx": "^7"

// after
"@babel/core": "^8",
"@babel/helper-module-imports": "^8",
"@babel/helper-plugin-utils": "^8",
"@babel/plugin-syntax-jsx": "^8"

• There's no dual-support build: the preset uses Babel 8 APIs, so Babel 7 will no longer load it.
• On Node older than 22.18, upgrade Node first — Babel 8 won't install otherwise.

Signals — tuple form removed (0.21.234)

signal() returns a single object, not a destructurable tuple.

// before
const [read, write, update] = signal(0)

// after
const count = signal(0)
count.read()
count.write(1)
count.update(n => n + 1)

Types: SignalObject<T> → Signal<T>; SignalTuple<T> is gone.

use:* behavior plugins → use:ref factories (0.21.234)

The built-in use:clickoutside, use:clipboard, use:fullscreen, use:prevent-enter, use:click-selects-all, use:click-focus-children-input, use:enter-focus-next, use:size-to-input, and use:clickoutsideonce directives are gone. Import the matching factory from pota/use/* and pass it through the single use:ref:

// before
<div use:clickoutside={handler}/>
<button use:clipboard="copy"/>
<input use:prevent-enter={true}/>

// after
import { clickOutside } from 'pota/use/clickoutside'
import { clipboard } from 'pota/use/clipboard'
import { preventEnter } from 'pota/use/form'

<div use:ref={clickOutside(handler)}/>
<button use:ref={clipboard('copy')}/>
<input use:ref={preventEnter}/>

• use:clickoutsideonce → clickOutside(handler, { once: true }).
• Parameterized helpers (clickOutside, clipboard, fullscreen) are factories — call them. Parameterless ones (preventEnter, clickSelectsAll, enterFocusNext, …) are the ref directly.
• Compose several with an array: use:ref={[clickOutside(h), preventEnter]}.
• use:ref, use:connected, use:disconnected, use:css, and use:bind are unchanged.

@static JSX marker removed (0.21.234)

Just delete the comment — the expression compiles the same.

// before
<div prop:value={/* @static */ compute()} />
// after
<div prop:value={compute()} />

Removed / moved exports (0.21.234, 0.20.233)

• Linkify is no longer re-exported from pota/components — import it from pota/components/Linkify.
• propsPlugin / propsPluginNS are no longer exported; for per-element behavior use a use:ref factory from pota/use/*.
• firewall removed from pota/store; validatePassword removed from pota/use/string (both were placeholders).
• Derived.run() removed — store the dependency in a signal and write to that signal instead.

Boolean children no longer render as text (0.20.228)

<p>{true}</p> now renders nothing (matching React/Solid). So {cond && <X/>} renders nothing when cond is falsy instead of printing "false". To show a boolean as text, wrap it: {String(value)}.

The rename wave (0.18.184)

If the app predates 0.18.184, expect a broad sweep:

before	after
ref=	use:ref=
css=	use:css=
onMount	use:connected
onUnmount	use:disconnected
import … 'pota/web'	'pota/components'
import … 'pota/html'	'pota/xml'
html tagged template	xml
Router	Route
location.query	location.searchParams
pota/plugin / pota/plugin/useFoo.js	pota/use / pota/use/foo.js
onLoaded (async fns)	onLoad

Same release made DOM attribute-first, so several properties now need the prop: namespace:

• innerHTML → prop:innerHTML
• textContent → prop:textContent
• srcObject → prop:srcObject
• indeterminate → prop:indeterminate (on a checkbox)
• <textarea value={v}/> → <textarea>{v}</textarea>

Behavior changes that may need no code edit

These changed runtime behavior rather than syntax — check assumptions instead of swapping calls:

• Duplicate attributes — last wins: <div class="1" class="2"/> yields class="2" (0.19.211).
• Spreads behave like JavaScript now — multiple spreads or a mix of attrs and spreads merge into one object, later keys win (0.19.207).
• Collapse no longer renders a <pota-collapse> custom element; it wraps children in a plain <div>. Re-target any pota-collapse query (0.20.230).
• Rejected promises in bare promise children, derived, and action chains now route to the nearest Errored / catchError boundary instead of becoming unhandled rejections (0.20.229, 0.20.228).

Workflow

Grep the app for the old pattern, replace per above, then run the app's type-check and tests.

When in doubt, read the installed source. The pota the app actually runs lives in node_modules/pota/, and it is the ground truth for that exact installed version — trust it over any summary, this skill included. Check there before assuming an API's shape:

• Exact version — node_modules/pota/package.json "version".
• Real source — follow that file's "exports" map to the module (pota → src/exports.js, pota/components → src/components/@main.js, pota/store → src/lib/store.js, …) and read the actual signature; types sit under typescript/ and generated/types/.

(Maintainers: how to add an entry to this skill when you ship a breaking change lives in .claude/rules/release.md, not in this consumer-facing body.)