Using Forms in Next.js (Server Actions, Revalidating Data)

[@austincodes]

Genuinely excited about this 🙌 I'd love to see more complicated examples with Zod validation

[@discoverlance]

With zod validation, I tried one and if you look at what he did, the parsed variable returns an object with the parsed data but when you put it in a try catch, you can catch the instance of ZodError and get it's property formErrors.fieldErrors which will return all the errors.

[@jeghaire]

Especially examples of zod and useForm hooks

[@stevebendersky2056]

exactly@@jeghaire

[@rafaelrocha3991]

There’s a library that combines both: next-safe-action Quite useful if you don’t want to create your own action validation wrapper.

[@marktaylor865]

I learn by doing. Not by reading. This was exactly what i needed. I implemented this, saw it working, learnt how and why it worked and added it to my project. Perfecto. Thanks bro.

[@robgioeli]

I genuinely love Next. It has changed my life financially and has made working with the web intuitive.

[@franciscooteiza]

LIAR!!

[@GeniusHawlah]

@@franciscooteiza At least let him lie in peace.😂😂😂😂

[@kyle-andrewgovinder9902]

Whoever drew up Lee's specs was very kind. Smart, endearingly charming, adorable as all hell

[@maksymdudyk1718]

new, important and complicated concept such as `server action` the author explains on even more complicated usecases.

[@KySuga.]

Love that you touched upon accessibility!

[@MikeBritton]

Thanks for this tutorial, Lee. Excellent job clarifying in simple terms the elements of server actions.

[@JamesNMK]

this thing definitely gonna hurt my head for a few days. thanks for the video.

[@pawelblaszczyk__]

Really nice video, your explanations are always amazingly informative, thanks a lot 🔥Also, can’t wait for the stable release of the “cache” function, good to know that it’s coming soon

[@OptimBro]

The video shows the uploaded time 5 mins ago when I am writing this comment, and your comment shows posted 5 hours ago 😬😬 i.imgur.com/2o1sCXW.mp4

[@pawelblaszczyk__]

@@OptimBro it was unlisted and linked in Next.js docs update PR before official publication 😄

[@OptimBro]

ohh that was the puzzle@@pawelblaszczyk__ , thanks 🙏🙏😂😂

[@EvHaus]

This is great! Can you do a follow up with some more advanced stuff? Like, how do I handle optimistic updates & failures/rollbacks, how do I ensure my TODOs mutation state is synced across all pages/components that might need it, how can I update TODOs state from within the app code (not as part of a form submission). In other words -- is it possible to use this new paradigm to replace most of what Redux does?

[@suzanne_atkinson]

or react hook form?

[@AlfonsusAC]

Thank you for the video. Very imformative. Shows how easy it is to create form in Next.js!

[@improvingwithfun]

Hi Lee and engineers 👋 Thank you for the smooth video. Watching this I came to a few questions: 1. What is the reason to move from the previous approach? How much performance are we winning here? It would be nice to see some good and old before/after comparisons. 2. Many people are asking for more advanced cases, but are those even possible? I don't see modern forms without the usual rerendering that we used until now. Thank you and I hope for more such videos in the future!

[@СергійК-ш4у]

Thanks a lot for your explanations and demo it was really useful for me. The only question I didnt find answer on is how to handle multiple actions within single form

[@guylepage33]

Great walk through as usual! Thank you. 🙏

[@Krzysiekoy]

3:21 - wait a minute. Maybe I'm not understanding something, but doesn't schema.parse throw an error if the data is incorrect? And if yes, shouldn't it be inside the try block?

[@rockNbrain]

Great job guys, I'd love if server get stable and I will heavly use it !!

[@mohamed-zhioua]

always appreciating your valuable content

[@filipkovac767]

Please make long format video diving into topics like: client side validation, dependant fields, client side data formatting, array fields...

[@dealloc]

1. Use HTML input validation attributes. 2. Validate on server, returning the names of dependent inputs in the result of form action, or implement a client-side solution if you need instant feedback. 3. ??? This is not in scope, data formatting is highly subjective. But if you need a specific format on the server, deserialize the form data there. 4. Use name="some_field[]" as the name of one or more inputs, i.e. checkboxes.

[@Sorkstryparen]

Super great and educational videos you do! Keep it up!

[@mufassirshah9376]

Great stuff 🔥🔥

[@jasonsouthin6981]

Thanks for the video Lee !

[@FatihAltnok]

Great tip, aria-disabled instead of disabled!

[@faizanahmed9304]

Great explanation!

[@yowremco]

When cloning the project locally and filling in my vercel database credentials I get "Error: db error: ERROR: relation "todos" does not exist Caused by: ERROR: relation "todos" does not exist" And when im tryting to deploy this straight from the template to vercel It also won't build. Type error: '"react-dom"' has no exported member named 'experimental_useFormState'. Did you mean 'experimental_useFormStatus'? 1 | 'use client' 2 | > 3 | import { experimental_useFormState as useFormState } from 'react-dom' | ^ 4 | import { experimental_useFormStatus as useFormStatus } from 'react-dom' 5 | import { createTodo } from '@/app/actions' 6 | error Command failed with exit code 1. Something broken with the template?

[@solaaar3]

same, i'm getting an error related to postgres

[@ratasobreviviendoenlascloa4847]

Server actions is alpha ,end.

[@RobertoCestari]

Hello Lee On minute 7:24, when you delete a todo and use revalidatePath, the code shown does not work. You would never be able to get the returned message (on lines 50 to 52). Ireproduced your example. This is probably because the todo is removed from component tree, and therefore the state is reset.

[@eliuddyn]

Amazing 🔥🔥

[@gmzi]

thanks lee, this is awesome. I'm just wondering how to clear the text input after a new todo has been created. So much cool stuff to try out!!!

[@electroheadfx]

I just installed I have error on '"react-dom"' has no exported member named 'experimental_useFormState'. Need I an special npm install for use experimental react feature ?

[@leerob]

It seems there's a TypeScript error there at the moment, you can ts-ignore that, we'll fix it here in a patch release very shortly (apologies!).

[@BaileySimrell]

@@leerob still doesn't work after adding ts-ignore error TypeError: (0 , react_dom__WEBPACK_IMPORTED_MODULE_4__.experimental_useFormState) is not a function or its return value is not iterable

[@jauki2742]

@@BaileySimrell did you find a solution for this problem because i encountered the same problem exept i am not using the experimental_useFormState, just the useFormState, been to multiple GitHub Issues, but didn't figure it out

[@morg33327]

How would you recommend approaching submitting a form that relies on state being built up over time? For example: a form with multiple inputs including an input that builds an array of values through something like a multi-select input or an input collecting a list of emails?

[@rafaelrocha3991]

well if it relies a lot on user interaction to progressively enhance the form (dependent fields and so on) you can’t really just use the server for that unless you submit the form at several points and return different forms dependent on the server side state (storing it in memory or KV store)

[@alanhettinger4051]

Does the page file get statically rendered in this example? If not, why does it get dynamically rendered?

[@patrickjreid]

This was a great explaination... the docs were pretty hard to follow and understand. None of the examples connect together so its hard to get a full picture of what is going on.

[@alexmg404]

Thanks, very helpful video. How would you go about clearing the input after submitting with server actions?

[@agus-wesly]

make the input client component, use the useRef hook with useEffect, inside of the effect check for the form status and clear it

[@Dev-Siri]

THEY FINALLY FIXED THE "GET STATE BACK FROM SERVER ACTIONS' ISSUE.

[@kamill34]

does the server actions is still expermiental flag?

[@leerob]

For now, yes: nextjs.org/docs/app/building-your-application/data-fetching/forms-and-mutations

[@Abhishek-fw7oo]

Now we want Lee to create a next js course for nextjs 2077 ❤

[@ZubairMughal-y7c]

any videos on server side sorting? would it follow the same principle of passing a slug or id?

[@jsinnerx]

What about unit tests for those features? It looks like that "action" usage will cause some issues on unit tests.

[@vuletav]

Vercel does not mention the use of server actions for data fetching in the documentation? Apparently they don't cache?

[@ethan2130]

how about the front-end form validation before submitting to the server action? Or just rely on the HTML attribute? and the server action catch block's return error message?

[@abdullahisiaq9348]

This doesn't work. I tried to use it but it kept on throwing me an error saying that "Cannot access get on the server. You cannot dot into a temporary client reference from a server component. You can only pass the value through the client"

[@yashjha0007]

is there a reason why SubmitButton is a separate component instead of just being a part of AddForm. can we not use both useFormStatus and useFormState hooks in the same component?

[@vinayparmar488]

Because button is interective, it has to be a client side component, thus it is separate component

[@neil4411]

Love the tutorial! Would there be a way to unit test "action" attribute?

[@solaaar3]

i'm getting an error while running the dev server: VercelPostgresError - 'missing_connection_string': You did not supply a 'connectionString' and no 'POSTGRES_URL' env var was found.

[@aralroca]

I tried the example but I get "Error: An error occurred in the Server Components render but no message was provided" 😅

[@___ruthless]

app router tribe baby lets go

[@giovannitonussi3746]

Thats very nice and useful. But I ask aren't we delegating too much responsibility to the "behind the curtains"?

[@sillvvasensei]

Can you revalidate multiple tags yet? When I tried previously, it had issues when trying to call revalidateTags multiple times with each tag

[@vignesh_m_1995]

Suppose we have a table in a Next JS page and the table has a filter (client) component with interactivity. When we hit Apply, how do we pass the filter values from the client child to the server parent component. (The parent fetches the data and renders the table). I can see many suggestions to pass the data as params or queryParams using revalidate or nav methods of next. That works fine for a simple values like ID or search params. For example, if it is not just an ID but an object (advanced filter similar to the one in Amazon), should we just pass the entire object via the search params and make the URL bloated with so many values or are there any alternate way to communicate from client child (filter) to server parent component (where data is fetched) ??

[@andrethomas3262]

Is there a way to prevent the form from resetting if there is a validation error?

[@shadowfaxenator]

When JS is disabled we don't get action returns. in state

[@josaelprz]

Does revalidatePath adds some payload to the response in conjunction with the data you return on your server action or revalidatePath streams the new state to acknowledge the client to revalidate cache and update UI and then the server action return statement is hit, streams another response and the client updates again?

[@wolffair1119]

Is there a video how to perform unit testing on this form? I tried setting it up but getting errors about 'useFormState' Any help would be appreciated.

[@didardev]

nice video, what if we have a modal and we want to close it after the server action is done and returned value from server, ?

[@MICHAELZ50]

May I know what is the purpose of writing the 2 hidden input tags in DeleteForm Component?

[@leerob]

To forward that data in `FormData`, to be used in the Server Action. www.w3schools.com/tags/att_input_type_hidden.asp#:~:text=Definition%20and%20Usage,when%20the%20form%20is%20submitted.

[@MICHAELZ50]

@@leerob oh I see. Is it because now the DeleteForm component has its own tag so it needs some "hidden" input values acting as ID in the FormData for server action?

[@GeniusHawlah]

So if I need the todo data in some other far-away components, I have to prop-drill?

[@AllysonTS]

Lee, is there any way to simulate the following scenario: I have a component called user.tsx and another called filters.tsx, using useSearchParams I can pass a "state" to users.tsx and use this data from filter.tsx to change the data displayed on my screen. This with react query is very simple, because if there is any change in the queryKey (the filters in this case) it automatically invalidates the current query and redoes the fetch. My question is: Is there a way to obtain a similar result using only server actions and fetch making requests to a api?

[@flavienpensato9907]

Hello, very interesting but I wonder what about security? Do we have access to the request to now if users are authorized or not?

[@MatthewMammola]

When starting off this example, is it necessary to do some configuration before it can be used? It is immediately giving me a error upon first npm run dev - Error: connect ECONNREFUSED ::1:5432 Do i need to create a server it can communicate with before this example can be used?

[@tiagodev5838]

I'd say that it is assumed you have a sql server running and configured a connection to it.

[@dhkim6672]

Since `aria-disabled` is used here, we must programmatically prevent clicking while pending state. how can i handle this?

[@leerob]

I have an example here, you can use onClick on the button: github.com/vercel/commerce/pull/1209

[@dhkim6672]

​@@leerob Thank you for the excellent reference. It has helped me understand server actions better!

[@ktrifon]

What if this form was a search form and below you wanted to see filtered ToDos? In this case, the server action should return data based on the search criteria but how do you return this data? The todos area should not fill by a full db search now, it should fill with the results of the sever action. You have to use the search term from the form. I am missing something here and I cannot do it (for the moment). Also, I am not sure any more which component should be a server component and which one should be a client component. Is my approach wrong? Are server actions ONLY for mutations? Any suggestions? (All the videos show server actions mutating data. I want just a search) Thanks...

[@in43sh]

instant subscription

[@visheshmangla8220]

How to add middleware headers to this? Like in case of login form, in middleware.tsx I m fetching the csrftoken from my django rest api. I can check the cookies in action but that's double work.

[@pankaj-kumar-yadav-67]

Which VS CODE theme are you using?

[@blazi_0]

Please no one is talking on the revalidate tag, how can u use it in this case??

[@electroheadfx]

the exemple use Vercel postgres grant, is it possible to have a public one for test?

[@leerob]

You could use any postgres database, it's just one example!

[@ishakimanuel3513]

is adding some data using hidden input are recommended ways by nextjs team? is it a best practices or i can try another way? why just not passing the hidden data in initial argument of form hooks , it looks like more simpler rather than adding additional html element

[@scottnoring2960]

I'm getting the error: TypeError: (0 , react__WEBPACK_IMPORTED_MODULE_1__.useActionState) is not a function or its return value is not iterable. I am usig React 19 canary version and this original code.

[@panoscool_]

@leerob why server actions cannot be used for data fetching from a db?

[@JuanPabloGallegoJaramillo]

por que se reinica el componente cuando envio la data , nunca llega el console.log? export async function createMemberTeam(formData: FormData) { 'use server'; console.log('createMemberTeam', formData); }

[@RafaelNoronhadeOliveiraSoveral]

Donde esta el metodo async hermano?

[@Abdullah-oj2ih]

what camera are you using?

[@81NARY]

Hey, could you maybe shed some light on Auth + XSRF on this? As it's submitting a form and if cookies are used for Auth, this would be vulnerable to XSRF attacks, right?

[@onlinepolice8429]

Looks like you could easily do a SQL Injection in that code?

[@daffastack]

untill now i cant use "useFormStatus" from react for adding loading state when submitting form server actions error message : 'experimental_useFormStatus' is not exported from 'react-dom' (imported as 'useFormStatus') any sugestion or help ? currently i use : "next": "^14.0.4", "react-dom": "^18.2.0",

[@letsplayanything1829]

Same for this specc: "next": "^14.1.1-canary.46", "react": "^18.2.0", did you found a solution to this ?

[@daffastack]

@@letsplayanything1829 I didn't have any solutions yet 😭

[@daffastack]

Now I set loading state before and after actions at the form Like : { setLoading={true} AddData(formdata) setLoading={false} } }> // form input component This is also works but not best solutions

[@Mavesound]

What's the big difference between React Hook Form?

[@leerob]

React Hook Form uses the same patterns as the Pages Router towards the beginning on the video (event handlers)

[@parham1894]

I'm new to nextjs13 , in react I was using react query to handle remote data coming from api and show isloading on screen and also optimistic UI , and I want to know does next 13 need any library to handle those functions or I just need to create fetch request in any server component I want. my current next project is a blog

[@ahmedivy]

Why server actions can't be used directly as a value to onClick attr for a button and just passed the data as an argument to function and nextjs will serialize automatically to send the request on server?

[@dealloc]

Server actions are serialized to URL endpoints on the output, that is then handled by Next and directed to the correct server action handler. onClick are for client-side only events, and you cannot serialize function from server -> client. This the same reason you cannot pass a function to event handlers within server components.

[@ahmedivy]

@@dealloc then we should use server actions only for forms? I mean if i have a button that when triggers has to change some data on server then api endpoints are more clean? Bcs if i have to make it a server action i have to enter all the things that i want to send as a payload (for example in apis), as a hidden form fields, isn't that gets more complicated?

[@dealloc]

@@ahmedivy It depends on what you're doing-for simple server-side mutations, this is the approach to use as it can be progressively enhanced (i.e. work without JavaScript), and with React's upcoming hooks to handle form state, loading, optimistic updates, etc. It's not a silver bullet solution; e.g. you cannot use form submissions to recieve callbacks from a request (i.e. send data, waiting for a response from the server), in those cases you should use regular fetch, or a library like React Query/swr to handle client-side fetching. But this limits you to only support users with JavaScript, which may in some cases be what you want, and in other cases not. These are _Server_ actions. It's in the name ;)

[@jordancutler7552]

Hey Lee, for the `aria-disabled`, do we not need to worry about accidental double submit behavior?

[@leerob]

You'd want to add that code in `onClick`: a11y-101.com/development/aria-disabled

[@stevebendersky2056]

Hey is this possible to use thhe useFormState with api route handler or fetch call ? as I dont use right now server actions in my app.

[@fayrouzadham4808]

experimental_useFormState doesn't show up in react-dom

[@sugagusto6175]

state returned from action always contain: 0:[$@1, “development, null]. how to remove that?

[@MadanGhimire-b7z]

can you make a video on how to connect with postgres database for this project

[@abhaykumar9806]

Had a very bad experience trying to work with method="GET" in next js forms. Nothing works. Always does a full page refresh. Didn't have these many probems in remix

[@AbuBakr1]

Are you promoting remix? No thanks

[@whoman7930]

Can you make a video on authentication patterns with the new app router?

[@leerob]

Yeah, I can make one on this eventually! Good suggestion.

[@OptimBro]

with a middleware, database examples maybe@@leerob

[@lzl0_699]

That would be a great video. 👍

[@whoman7930]

@@leerob Specially I wanted to know if I should use middleware to protect some routes, or should I use the redirect function in server components?

[@wriddhihazra]

@@leerob that would be amazing if you could show some cool new do some standard well known stuff like CRUD(this video) and authentication and then maybe even streaming data and websockets. Love you guys at the NEXT.js team, this magical framework really makes fullstack development a joy and as simple as it should've always been.

[@umair170]

Does amyone know if Next exposes those hooks to keep the API consistent? The ones that are unstable in react canary?

[@portalplays3760]

Can you do an example where JavaScript is disabled, server side validation fails, and we need to show an error state to the user. This doesn't seem to work in the example provided.

[@portalplays3760]

Looks like this was fixed in 13.5.4! Thanks! 🙂

[@jeanpierrejeri6425]

When you have javascript enabled, and add a todo, the new todo title doesnt get clean up, how can i do that?

[@splodys]

Hey Lee, great content as always! Will you do a new video regarding next auth and providers like credentials, google and github? Credentials is mostly covered in the nextjs learn course, but google auth is not. I've been wondering if we should use api routes to handle this or is there any way using form actions as well. Thanks and keep up the great work!

[@mystupidbrain5299]

If this was a login form, how would you handle session storage?

[@NikitaPolovinkin]

Why when you press "Add" the Form does not reset?

[@codeyalaya]

how to show #contact section of a long page, after submitting form using server actions with js disabled. #contact section is at last of the page.

[@discoverlance]

I will install the latest next update in my project to test but earlier when I tested, forms were not working without JavaScript and redirect in a server action was failing 😢

[@leerob]

Make sure you're on the latest version, 13.5.2 at this time!

[@rijkvanwel]

I know documentation is being worked on, but could you describe in 1-2 lines what experimental_useFormState does exactly?

[@Lmsk-t5d]

hidden input for ID is not secured solution to my mind, has anyone better approach for it?

[@amesqFF]

hi, right? how make to clear input later add a todo?

[@codeyalaya]

your code does not work when deployed to vercel and javascript disabled

[@MichaelPresecan]

In the latest react useFormState is not present

[@samarnagar9699]

can you make tutorial for how to intigrate and work with postgres with next js without express

[@howardcohen1653]

also how would someone cleanup the inputs

[@maximilianorios]

There is something driving me crazy. I've seen this example in million places, and const formData = new FormData(event.currentTarget) does not compile in Vercel. It explicitily says that event.currentTarget is not assignable to HtmlFormElement. It works locally, runs correctly, but Vercel refuses to build it.

[@raisonit]

developing with NextJS seems like constant pioneering. problem is most pioneers live in grass huts