is it more idiomatic/preferred to expose a

mutableStateOf

or a

StateFlow

/

LiveData

property from a ViewModel?

I would prefer Flow, since it’s available on all platforms and doesn’t rely on any libraries that aren’t in the standard library.

I think mutableStateOf is idiomatic. Definitely not livedata if you can avoid it

I noticed this https://developer.android.com/jetpack/compose/state#viewmodels-source-of-truth, but it feels like we are putting view implementation/related API's inside the ViewModel if we use

mutableStateOf

If you use Flow, you can create your state in compose using

val state by fooFlow.collectAsState(defaultFoo)

to avoid having to put

state.value

everywhere. You can just use the state variable directly, which I find idiomatic enough. Bonus points for using a data class for state and having your state for the screen all come from a single flow.

Most of the implementation here exposes flows from the viewmodel and not a

mutableStateOf

property https://github.com/android/nowinandroid