> If you want something to execute once initially you can use useEffect with an empty dependency list, but note that then there’s no way of accessing updates values (in callbacks) and everything will reflect the initial state. Often you’ll have to use useRef just to keep track of the current state. Or maybe useState?

I'm not sure if I understood what you mean, but note that useState accepts not only the updated state, but also a function that takes the current state as argument and return the updated state.

In other words, instead of something like this

useEffect( async () => {

  ...

  const someValue = await someFunction();

  setState({...state, someValue });

}, [... ] );

you should use something like this

useEffect( async () => {

  ...

  const someValue = await someFunction();

  setState( currentState => ({...currentState, someValue }));

}, [ ... ] );

(the example is with async but it is the same for regular callbacks)