Navigation

<mk-nav> renders a list of links to your pages. It's built in, so you don't need to link it. A layout loader asks for the pages, and the layout passes them in:

// app/layouts/default.server.ts
export async function load({ navigation }) {
  return { props: { pages: await navigation() } };
}

<!-- app/layouts/default.html -->
<template component="site-shell">
  <defs>
    <prop name="pages" type="list(object({ href: string, label: string, current: string, depth: number, pageName: string, group?: string, ... }))" required>Site pages</prop>
  </defs>
  <aside><mk-nav from:items="$pages" label="Site"></mk-nav></aside>
  <main><slot name="page"></slot></main>
</template>

It renders an accessible <nav> of plain links with no styles of its own. The current page's link has aria-current="page", and each item has a data-depth you can indent with CSS.

Ordering pages

Pages are listed alphabetically by URL. To choose the order, start file and folder names with a number and a dot. The number sets the order and never appears in the URL:

app/pages/
  index.html             /                  1st
  01.guide/
    index.html           /guide/            2nd
    01.install.html      /guide/install/    3rd
    02.deploy.html       /guide/deploy/     4th
  02.api.html            /api/              5th
  about.html             /about/            last: unnumbered pages follow numbered ones

Numbers compare as numbers, so 10. comes after 02.. Zero-padded names (01., 02.) also sort correctly in your editor. A folder's own page comes before the pages inside it. A dash is part of a name, not an order: 2024-recap.html is /2024-recap/.

A page can also set its number with mk:order, which is how a page format such as Markdown passes on an order from its front matter. The number takes the place of the file name's own prefix, and compares with its neighbours' prefixes as one, so this page sorts as 03.about.html would:

<template component="page-about">
  <defs><meta name="mk:order" content="3"></defs>
  …
</template>

mk:order orders a page among the pages in its folder. A folder's index.html comes first in its folder, so on an index page, mk:order orders the whole folder among its neighbours, in place of the folder's own prefix: mk:order 5 on guide/index.html sorts guide/ as 05.guide/ would. The site's home page has no folder to order, so mk:order there is an error.

Groups

A route group is a folder with a name in parentheses, such as (Getting started). Its pages appear together under that label in navigation. The folder's name is left out of their URLs: app/pages/docs/(Getting started)/intro.html is served at /docs/intro/.

Add a number and a dot before the opening parenthesis, as in 01.(Getting started)/, to order the group among the pages and folders beside it. Its pages keep their own order inside it:

app/pages/docs/
  index.html                  /docs/           1st
  01.(Getting started)/
    01.intro.html             /docs/intro/     2nd, group "Getting started"
    02.setup.html             /docs/setup/     3rd, group "Getting started"
  02.(Reference)/
    api.html                  /docs/api/       4th, group "Reference"
  faq.html                    /docs/faq/       last

Each navigation item in a group has a group field with the group's label. <mk-nav> shows the label as a list item, with a data-group attribute, before the group's first link, so a sidebar can style it as a heading:

<li data-group="" data-depth="1">Getting started</li>
<li data-depth="1"><a href="/docs/intro/" aria-current="false">intro</a></li>

For nested groups, group is the innermost label; each route's groups (from createApplication or discoverRoutes) lists them all, outermost first, with their order and depth.

Declaring navigation props

A layout passes navigation items through its own props, as in the examples on this page. Declare them with an open object type, which ends in ..., so the props accept every field an item has, including group and fields a later release adds:

object({ href: string, label: string, current: string, depth: number, pageName: string, group?: string, ... })

<mk-nav>, <mk-breadcrumbs>, and <mk-pager> declare their items this way.

Labels and hidden pages

A link's label is the last part of its URL, or "Home" for /. A page can choose its own, or stay out of navigation while remaining a page:

<template component="page-install">
  <defs><meta name="mk:label" content="Installation"></defs>
  …
</template>

<template component="page-thanks">
  <defs><meta name="mk:navigation" content="hidden"></defs>
  …
</template>

An mk:alias URL, such as <meta name="mk:alias" content="/start/">, opens the same page but never gets its own link. Visiting it marks the page's own link as current.

A navigation tree

navigationTree() returns the same pages as navigation(), in the same order, nested by folder and group. <mk-nav> renders it as nested lists, with each folder and group in a native <details> element that is open when it holds the current page:

// app/layouts/default.server.ts
export async function load({ navigationTree }) {
  return { props: { pages: await navigationTree() } };
}

<!-- app/layouts/default.html -->
<template component="site-shell">
  <defs>
    <prop name="pages" type="list(object({ label: string, current: string, depth: number, ... }))" required>Site pages</prop>
  </defs>
  <aside><mk-nav from:items="$pages" label="Site"></mk-nav></aside>
  <main><slot name="page"></slot></main>
</template>

For 01.guide/index.html (titled "The guide"), 01.guide/01.install.html, and 01.guide/02.(Advanced)/tuning.html, while /guide/tuning/ is the current page, the guide's node is:

{
  "label": "The guide", "href": "/guide/", "pageName": "page-guide",
  "current": "false", "open": true, "depth": 0, "order": "01",
  "children": [
    { "label": "install", "href": "/guide/install/", "pageName": "page-install",
      "current": "false", "open": false, "depth": 1, "order": "01", "children": [] },
    { "label": "Advanced", "current": "false", "open": true, "depth": 1, "order": "02",
      "children": [
        { "label": "tuning", "href": "/guide/tuning/", "pageName": "page-tuning",
          "current": "page", "open": true, "depth": 2, "order": null, "children": [] }
      ] }
  ]
}

A folder with an index page is that page's node, and its summary links to the page. from gives the tree under a folder, with the folder's own index page first. <mk-nav> also takes navigation()'s flat list, which it renders as one list. pager() follows the same order, so the previous and next links walk the tree from top to bottom.

Breadcrumbs and previous/next links

<mk-breadcrumbs> shows the trail from the home page to the current page, and <mk-pager> links the pages before and after it in navigation order. Both are built in, and their loader helpers sit next to navigation():

// app/layouts/default.server.ts
export async function load({ breadcrumbs, pager }) {
  return { props: { crumbs: await breadcrumbs(), ...await pager() } };   // pager() gives { previous, next }
}

<!-- app/layouts/default.html -->
<template component="site-shell">
  <defs>
    <prop name="crumbs" type="list(object({ href: string, label: string, current: string, depth: number, pageName: string, group?: string, ... }))" required>Trail</prop>
    <prop name="previous" type="object({ href: string, label: string, current: string, depth: number, pageName: string, group?: string, ... })">Previous page</prop>
    <prop name="next" type="object({ href: string, label: string, current: string, depth: number, pageName: string, group?: string, ... })">Next page</prop>
  </defs>
  <main>
    <mk-breadcrumbs from:items="$crumbs"></mk-breadcrumbs>
    <slot name="page"></slot>
    <mk-pager from:previous="$previous" from:next="$next"></mk-pager>
  </main>
</template>

breadcrumbs({ from }) starts the trail at a folder instead of the home page, and pager({ from }) moves only between the pages under it.

Part of the site

navigation({ from: '/guide/' }) lists only the pages under /guide/. Each item has:

Dynamic pages appear once per value their loader's entries() lists. Outside loaders, application.navigation({ from, current }) returns the same list.

Pass exclude: ["/v/", "/fr/"] with a navigation query to omit application-relative subtrees from flat navigation, navigation trees, breadcrumbs and previous/next links. Prefixes need leading and trailing slashes; they do not include the deployment base.