@xstate/inspect should not bail in production

[mattpocock]

@xstate/inspect works when process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development', but fails when NODE_ENV === 'production'. This is due to this line of code:

https://github.com/davidkpiano/xstate/blob/f3870f837e7d86bd4e3a1d28485e76b026579291/packages/core/src/devTools.ts#L43

Reproduction:

https://github.com/mattpocock/xstate-inspect-repro

Instead of bailing here, we should leave it up to the user whether or not they choose to have devTools: true in production

[Andarist]

Right, the integration with Redux DevTools is available in production (from what I see in the source code) so this should be too.

We probably should put a doc in place to explain to people how to configure stuff properly though so they don't start opening popups in production by accident 🤔

[SimeonC]

I too tracked it down to this. I raised an MR without thinking too deeply about it, this morning it occurs to me that we have 2 checks for this, as shown below. IS_PRODUCTION and global.__xstate__.

https://github.com/davidkpiano/xstate/blob/f3870f837e7d86bd4e3a1d28485e76b026579291/packages/core/src/devTools.ts#L43-L47
https://github.com/davidkpiano/xstate/blob/f3870f837e7d86bd4e3a1d28485e76b026579291/packages/core/src/devTools.ts#L33-L35

I think we can just remove the IS_PRODUCTION check here and leave the check to whether the dev tools global has been set or not.

We probably should put a doc in place to explain to people how to configure stuff properly though so they don't start opening popups in production by accident 🤔

I don't think we need anything extra to do this, the popup is triggered from @xstate/inspect and isn't actually checking for IS_PRODUCTION anyway so changing this shouldn't change whether the popup opens in production or not. All the dev tools code is doing in xstate core is dealing with that global __xstate__ devTools object.

https://github.com/davidkpiano/xstate/blob/f3870f837e7d86bd4e3a1d28485e76b026579291/packages/xstate-inspect/src/browser.ts#L131

[SimeonC]

@Andarist what do you think about the above just removing the is prod flag?

[Andarist]

I don't think we need anything extra to do this, the popup is triggered from @xstate/inspect and isn't actually checking for IS_PRODUCTION anyway so changing this shouldn't change whether the popup opens in production or not. All the dev tools code is doing in xstate core is dealing with that global xstate devTools object.

You are right. I think it should be OK to remove this production check then - unless @davidkpiano doesn't think so.

[davidkpiano]

I don't think we need anything extra to do this, the popup is triggered from @xstate/inspect and isn't actually checking for IS_PRODUCTION anyway so changing this shouldn't change whether the popup opens in production or not. All the dev tools code is doing in xstate core is dealing with that global xstate devTools object.

You are right. I think it should be OK to remove this production check then - unless @davidkpiano doesn't think so.

That's fine. Just have to make a note in the docs that it's important to prevent the inspector from running in prod, if that is not desirable.