name: angular-best-practices
description: Angular 21 development with modern best practices including signals, standalone components, reactive patterns, and accessibility. Use when creating Angular components, services, templates, or performing any Angular frontend development work. Covers TypeScript strict typing, signal-based state management, reactive forms, lazy loading, ng-icon setup, and Tailwind styling.

Angular 21 Best Practices

TypeScript

• Use strict type checking
• Prefer type inference when type is obvious
• Avoid any; use unknown when type is uncertain

Components

• Always use standalone components (do NOT set standalone: true — it's the default in v20+)
• Set changeDetection: ChangeDetectionStrategy.OnPush
• Use input() and output() functions instead of decorators
• Use computed() for derived state
• Keep components small and single-responsibility
• Prefer inline templates for small components
• Use Reactive forms over Template-driven
• Use class bindings instead of ngClass
• Use style bindings instead of ngStyle
• For external templates/styles, use paths relative to the component TS file
• Do NOT use @HostBinding/@HostListener — use the host object in the decorator instead

State Management with Signals

• Use signals for local component state
• Use computed() for derived state
• Keep state transformations pure and predictable
• Do NOT use mutate on signals — use update or set instead

For complex derived state patterns, see references/signal-patterns.md.

Resources (Async Data)

Use resource() for async data fetching with signals:

const userResource = resource({
  params: () => ({ id: userId() }),
  loader: ({ params, abortSignal }) => fetch(`/api/users/${params.id}`, { signal: abortSignal }),
});

const userName = computed(() => userResource.hasValue() ? userResource.value().name : undefined);

Key resource patterns:
- params returns undefined → loader doesn't run, status becomes 'idle'
- Use abortSignal to cancel in-flight requests
- Check hasValue() before accessing value() to handle loading/error states
- Status values: 'idle', 'loading', 'reloading', 'resolved', 'error', 'local'

Templates

• Use native control flow: @if, @for, @switch (NOT *ngIf, *ngFor, *ngSwitch)
• Use async pipe for observables
• Keep templates simple — no complex logic
• Do NOT use arrow functions in templates (not supported)
• Do NOT assume globals like new Date() are available

Services

• Single responsibility per service
• Use providedIn: 'root' for singletons
• Use inject() function instead of constructor injection

@Injectable({ providedIn: 'root' })
export class UserService {
  private readonly http = inject(HttpClient);
}

Routing

• Implement lazy loading for feature routes:

export const routes: Routes = [
  {
    path: 'admin',
    loadComponent: () => import('./admin/admin.page').then(m => m.AdminPage),
  },
];

File Naming

• Routable view components: file-name.page.ts, file-name.page.html, file-name.page.css
• Regular components: file-name.component.ts
• Services: file-name.service.ts

Icons (ng-icon)

import { NgIcon, provideIcons } from '@ng-icons/core';
import { heroSparkles, heroTrash } from '@ng-icons/heroicons/outline';

@Component({
  selector: 'app-example',
  changeDetection: ChangeDetectionStrategy.OnPush,
  imports: [NgIcon],
  providers: [provideIcons({ heroSparkles, heroTrash })],
  template: `<ng-icon name="heroSparkles" />`,
})
export class ExampleComponent {}

Images

• Use NgOptimizedImage for all static images
• NgOptimizedImage does NOT work for inline base64 images

Styling

• Use Tailwind 4.1 for CSS (see tailwind skill if available)
• Angular CDK is available when needed

Accessibility

• MUST pass all AXE checks
• MUST meet WCAG AA minimums: focus management, color contrast, ARIA attributes