Introduction

FormAdapter turns a schema into a typed React form without turning the schema into a second configuration language.

It reads structure through Standard JSON Schema, validates with the original Standard Schema, and delegates every visible element to a UI adapter. Zod 4 and ArkType 2 work today. Accessible native HTML and DaisyUI 5 adapters are included; custom systems can extend the same complete base.

Zod or ArkType → form model → React runtime → HTML, DaisyUI, or your adapter

What stays where

• Your schema owns the data contract, validation, refinements, and transforms.
• FormAdapter owns form state, traversal, conditional behavior, accessibility wiring, arrays, drafts, wizards, and submission state.
• Your adapter owns controls, layout, messages, buttons, and styling.

That separation keeps ordinary form code small without making complex forms a dead end.

What is included

• Provider-scoped adapters with nearest-provider replacement
• Complete unstyled HTML and DaisyUI adapters
• Typed field paths, predicates, option values, and async validators
• Automatic and composed layouts
• Conditional fields and conditional requiredness
• Multi-step forms with step validation and error routing
• Homogeneous arrays, files, and draft persistence
• Native React 19 Server Actions and transport helpers
• One serializable error shape across client and server

What FormAdapter does not do

FormAdapter is not a page builder and does not invent an application data model. It also does not use OpenAPI as an intermediate format. OpenAPI is useful for network APIs; Standard Schema and Standard JSON Schema preserve the form contract more directly.

Unsupported schema structures render an explicit adapter-owned diagnostic instead of a partial or misleading form. See schema support before modeling tuples, records, recursive types, or broad unions.