PolicyEngine Recharts charts

Use this skill when creating or modifying charts in PolicyEngine applications. PolicyEngine favors Recharts over Plotly for frontend charts due to its dramatically smaller bundle size and React-native SVG rendering.

Why Recharts

• 85% smaller bundle: Recharts ~120 KB vs Plotly.js ~3+ MB gzipped
• React-native: SVG components, no external library injection
• SSR-friendly: Works with Next.js and Vite SSR
• Tree-shakeable: Import only what you use

Installation

bun install recharts

Do NOT install plotly.js or react-plotly.js for new projects.

Common imports

import {
  LineChart, Line, AreaChart, Area, BarChart, Bar,
  ComposedChart, XAxis, YAxis, CartesianGrid, Tooltip,
  Legend, ReferenceDot, ReferenceLine, ResponsiveContainer, Label,
} from "recharts";

Nice axis ticks (CRITICAL)

Recharts' default tick generation produces ugly non-round numbers. Since v3.8.0, Recharts has a built-in niceTicks prop that solves this natively.

Always set niceTicks="snap125" on every <XAxis> and <YAxis>:

<XAxis
  dataKey="x"
  type="number"
  niceTicks="snap125"
  domain={["auto", "auto"]}
  tickFormatter={tickFormatter}
/>
<YAxis
  niceTicks="snap125"
  domain={["auto", "auto"]}
  tickFormatter={tickFormatter}
/>

The snap125 algorithm snaps tick step sizes to {1, 2, 2.5, 5} × 10^n, producing human-friendly round labels like 0, 5, 10, 15, 20 instead of 0, 4, 8, 12, 16. It may leave some blank space at chart edges — this is the correct trade-off for readability.

Do NOT:

• Use a custom niceTicks() helper function — the built-in prop replaces it
• Use niceTicks as a bare boolean or niceTicks="auto" — always specify "snap125" explicitly
• Manually compute ticks arrays — let Recharts handle it

niceTicks enum values (always use "snap125"):

Value	Behavior	Use?
"snap125"	Snaps to {1,2,2.5,5} multiples — roundest labels	Always use this
"adaptive"	Space-efficient, less round labels	No
"auto"	Context-dependent, mirrors v2 behavior	No
"none"	No rounding, raw d3 ticks	No

Always pair with domain={["auto", "auto"]} — the default domain [0, 'auto'] clamps the minimum to 0, which breaks tick calculation for data that doesn't start at 0 (e.g., all-negative values).

Tooltip separator

Recharts default tooltip separator is : (with leading space). Always set separator=": " on the Tooltip component.

<Tooltip
  contentStyle={TOOLTIP_STYLE}
  separator=": "
  formatter={(value: number) => [formatCurrency(value), "Label"]}
/>

Standard chart template

SVG fill and stroke attributes accept var() directly -- no helper function is needed to resolve CSS custom properties. Use the shadcn/ui chart color variables (--chart-1 through --chart-5) for series colors and standard semantic variables for UI elements:

import {
  LineChart, Line, XAxis, YAxis, CartesianGrid,
  Tooltip, ResponsiveContainer, Label, ReferenceDot,
} from "recharts";

interface DataPoint { x: number; y: number; }

export default function MyChart({ data, highlightX }: {
  data: DataPoint[];
  highlightX?: number;
}) {
  const fmt = (v: number) => v.toLocaleString("en-US", {
    style: "currency", currency: "USD", maximumFractionDigits: 0,
  });
  const highlightPoint = highlightX != null
    ? data.reduce((best, d) =>
        Math.abs(d.x - highlightX) < Math.abs(best.x - highlightX) ? d : best,
        data[0])
    : null;

  return (
    <ResponsiveContainer width="100%" height={350}>
      <LineChart data={data} margin={{ left: 20, right: 30, top: 10, bottom: 20 }}>
        <CartesianGrid stroke="var(--border)" strokeDasharray="3 3" />
        <XAxis
          dataKey="x" type="number"
          niceTicks="snap125" domain={["auto", "auto"]}
          tickFormatter={fmt}
          tick={{ fontFamily: "var(--font-sans)", fontSize: 12 }}
        >
          <Label value="X axis" position="bottom" offset={0} />
        </XAxis>
        <YAxis
          niceTicks="snap125" domain={["auto", "auto"]}
          tickFormatter={fmt}
          tick={{ fontFamily: "var(--font-sans)", fontSize: 12 }}
        >
          <Label value="Y axis" angle={-90} position="insideLeft" offset={-5} />
        </YAxis>
        <Tooltip separator=": " formatter={(v: number) => [fmt(v), "Value"]} />
        <Line type="monotone" dataKey="y" stroke="var(--chart-1)" strokeWidth={3} dot={false} />
        {highlightPoint && (
          <ReferenceDot x={highlightPoint.x} y={highlightPoint.y} r={6}
            fill="var(--chart-3)" stroke="var(--chart-3)" />
        )}
      </LineChart>
    </ResponsiveContainer>
  );
}

Chart types

Use case	Component	Notes
Single line series	LineChart + Line	Most common
Multiple lines	LineChart + multiple Line	Different stroke colors
Filled area	AreaChart + Area	Good for cumulative/stacked
Stacked areas	ComposedChart + multiple Area	Set fillOpacity={1}
Bar chart	BarChart + Bar	Use fill not stroke
Mixed line + area	ComposedChart	Combine Line and Area

PolicyEngine styling

Never hardcode hex colors in frontend chart code. Use CSS custom properties directly via var() in SVG attributes:

// Chart series colors (shadcn/ui chart palette)
// Use these for data series — lines, areas, bars, dots
// --chart-1  Primary series (first line/bar)
// --chart-2  Secondary series
// --chart-3  Tertiary series / reference dots
// --chart-4  Fourth series
// --chart-5  Fifth series

// Semantic UI colors — use for chart chrome (grids, borders, backgrounds)
// --border       Grid lines, axis lines
// --background   Tooltip background
// --foreground   Axis labels, tick text
// --primary      Interactive UI elements (buttons, links)
// --font-sans    Font family

// Usage in JSX — pass var() directly to SVG attributes:
<Line stroke="var(--chart-1)" />
<Area fill="var(--chart-2)" stroke="var(--chart-2)" />
<ReferenceDot fill="var(--chart-3)" stroke="var(--chart-3)" />
<CartesianGrid stroke="var(--border)" />

// Tooltip style object
const TOOLTIP_STYLE = {
  background: "var(--background)",
  border: "1px solid var(--border)",
  borderRadius: 6,
  padding: "8px 12px",
};

See policyengine-design-skill for the full token reference.

Key rules

1. Always set niceTicks="snap125" on every <XAxis> and <YAxis> — never omit it, never use the bare boolean or "auto"
2. Always set domain={["auto", "auto"]} — required for niceTicks to compute correct domains
3. Always set type="number" on XAxis when using numeric data keys
4. Always set separator=": " on Tooltip
5. Always wrap in ResponsiveContainer with explicit height
6. Use dot={false} on Line components for clean curves with many data points
7. Use ReferenceDot to highlight the user's current selection
8. Use CSS variables for chart colors -- pass var(--chart-1) through var(--chart-5) directly to SVG fill/stroke attributes; never hardcode hex values
9. Negative currency: sign before symbol - Always format as -$31, never $-31

Currency formatting

Never manually concatenate currency symbols (`$${value}`). Use Intl.NumberFormat with style: 'currency', which handles negative sign placement correctly.

// WRONG — produces "$-31"
const fmt = (v: number) => `$${v.toLocaleString()}`;

// CORRECT — produces "-$31" (Intl handles sign placement)
const fmt = (v: number) => v.toLocaleString("en-US", {
  style: "currency", currency: "USD", maximumFractionDigits: 0,
});

In policyengine-app-v2, use formatParameterValue() from @/utils/chartValueUtils or formatCurrency() from @/utils/formatters -- both use Intl.NumberFormat internally.