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Label your useState values in React developer tools

Submitted by: @import:30-seconds-of-code·Mar 2, 2026·

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developertoolsyourusestatereactlabelvalues

Problem

When working with multiple useState() hooks in React, things can get a bit complicated while debugging. Luckily, there's an easy way to label these values, using the useDebugValue() hook to create a custom useStateWithLabel hook:
This hook is obviously meant mainly for development, but it can also be useful when creating React component or hook libraries. Additionally, you can easily abstract it in a way that the label is ignored in production builds. An example would be exporting a hook that defaults back to useState() when building for a production environment.

Solution

const useStateWithLabel = (initialValue, label) => {
  const [value, setValue] = useState(initialValue);
  useDebugValue(`${label}: ${value}`);
  return [value, setValue];
};

const Counter = () => {
  const [value, setValue] = useStateWithLabel(0, 'counter');
  return (
    <p>{value}</p>
  );
};

ReactDOM.createRoot(document.getElementById('root')).render(
  <Counter />
);
// Inspecting `Counter` in React developer tools will display:
//  StateWithLabel: "counter: 0"

Code Snippets

const useStateWithLabel = (initialValue, label) => {
  const [value, setValue] = useState(initialValue);
  useDebugValue(`${label}: ${value}`);
  return [value, setValue];
};

const Counter = () => {
  const [value, setValue] = useStateWithLabel(0, 'counter');
  return (
    <p>{value}</p>
  );
};

ReactDOM.createRoot(document.getElementById('root')).render(
  <Counter />
);
// Inspecting `Counter` in React developer tools will display:
//  StateWithLabel: "counter: 0"

Context

From 30-seconds-of-code: use-state-with-label

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