Should @primer/styled-octicons be a peer dependency?

[colebemis]

Context

We recently created a new package called @primer/styled-octicons (primer/octicons#417) that allows us to style Octicons with system props, without the need for the StyledOcticon wrapper component. I currently have a PR (#774) open to swap StyledOcticon with @primer/styled-octicons in Primer Components. As part of that PR, I'm trying to decide how we should handle the @primer/styled-octicons dependency. I've listed the pros and cons of a few options below. I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this ❤️

Options

A. Make it a regular dependency

🟢 Pros

• Consumers don't have to install@primer/styled-octicons separately.

🔴 Cons

• Consumers might install @primer/styled-octicons separately if they're using Octicons in other places in their app. This could lead to a version mismatch if the version they installed is different than the version Primer Components relies on. Version mismatch could result in increased bundle size and inconsistent icons.

B. Make it a peer dependency

🟢 Pros

• Consumers don't have to worry about version mismatch issues.
• Consumers can update all the Octicons in their app without having to wait for Primer Components to update its version of Octicons.

🔴 Cons

• Consumers might be confused about why they need to install the @primer/styled-octicons package if they don't use any components that have icons in them.
• Peer dependency errors might be frustrating and hard to understand.

C. Make it a regular dependency and export all the icons from Primer Components

🟢 Pros

• Consumers don't need to install@primer/styled-octicons separately.

🔴 Cons

• Tree shaking might break with this approach, which would result in a large increase in bundle size.
• We'd have to release a new version of Primer components every time we ship an update to Octicons.
• Consumers might be confused about why using Octicons with Primer Components is different than using Octicons alone.

Open questions

• Regardless of which option we choose, we should document how to use Octicons with Primer Components. Where would you expect that documentation to go?

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cc @emplums @BinaryMuse @dmarcey

[emplums]

I think we should go with Option B! And it feels best to put the documentation for this in the Octicons docs, with a separate "how to use octicons with Primer Components" section in the Primer Components docs

[dmarcey]

Since there are pros/cons for each, I'm evaluating based on which option has the "least bad" con 🙃 I think that I agree with @emplums that that is B. I also like that it is consistent with what the library is doing for styled-components, so maybe that helps set the expectation?

[daaku]

+1 for Option B. I discovered this discussion in trying to diagnose why my build included 2 copies of octicons each weighing in at 250kb (my tree shaking setup was.. shaky). I was using v13 whereas components still depends on v11.

Maybe dependabot can help keep the dependency evergreen ;)