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Frequently Asked Questions

SvelteKit is not 1.0 yet. Should I use it? What about Sapper?

SvelteKit is currently in beta while we finalize the APIs. No new features will be added to Sapper and all development will be focused on SvelteKit.

How do I use HMR with SvelteKit?

SvelteKit has HMR enabled by default powered by svelte-hmr. If you saw Rich's presentation at the 2020 Svelte Summit, you may have seen a more powerful-looking version of HMR presented. This demo had svelte-hmr's preserveLocalState flag on. This flag is now off by default because it may lead to unexpected behaviour and edge cases. But don't worry, you are still getting HMR with SvelteKit! If you'd like to preserve local state you can use the @hmr:keep or @hmr:keep-all directives as documented on the svelte-hmr page.

I'm having trouble using an adapter.

Please make sure the version of the adapter specified in your package.json is "next".

How do I setup a path alias?

First, you need to add it to the Vite configuration. In svelte.config.js add vite.resolve.alias:

svelte.config.js
ts
// @filename: ambient.d.ts
declare module 'path';
 
// @filename: index.js
import path from 'path';
 
/** @type {import('@sveltejs/kit').Config} */
const config = {
  kit: {
    vite: {
      resolve: {
        alias: {
          $utils: path.resolve('./src/utils')
        }
      }
    }
  }
};
 
export default config;

Then, to make TypeScript aware of the alias, add it to tsconfig.json (for TypeScript users) or jsconfig.json:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "paths": {
      "$utils/*": ["src/utils/*"]
    }
  }
}

How do I use environment variables?

Vite uses dotenv to load environment variables from a file named .env or similar. Only environment variables prefixed with VITE_ are exposed (you can set envPrefix to change this). You can access the variable using import.meta.env.VITE_ENV_VAR, and Vite will statically replace them at build-time.

To use environment variables at runtime, you would need to instantiate dotenv yourself in your server-side code so that they are exposed at process.env.YOUR_ENV_VAR. You may also use $session to pass them to the client if needed.

Please see the Vite documentation for more info about environment variables.

How do I include details from `package.json` in my application?

You cannot directly require JSON files, since SvelteKit expects svelte.config.js to be an ES module. If you'd like to include your application's version number or other information from package.json in your application, you can load JSON like so:

svelte.config.js
ts
import { readFileSync } from 'fs';
import { fileURLToPath } from 'url';
 
const file = fileURLToPath(new URL('package.json', import.meta.url));
const json = readFileSync(file, 'utf8');
const pkg = JSON.parse(json);

How do I fix the error I'm getting trying to include a package?

Vite's SSR support has become fairly stable since Vite 2.7. Most issues related to including a library are due to incorrect packaging.

Libraries work best with Vite when they distribute an ESM version and you may wish to suggest this to library authors. Here are a few things to keep in mind when checking if a library is packaged correctly:

  • exports takes precedence over the other entry point fields such as main and module. Adding an exports field may not be backwards-compatible as it prevents deep imports.
  • ESM files should end with .mjs unless "type": "module" is set in which any case CommonJS files should end with .cjs.
  • main should be defined if exports is not. It should be either a CommonJS or ESM file and adhere to the previous bullet. If a module field is defined, it should refer to an ESM file.
  • Svelte components should be distributed entirely as ESM and have a svelte field defining the entry point.

It is encouraged to make sure the dependencies of external Svelte components provide an ESM version. However, in order to handle CommonJS dependencies vite-plugin-svelte will look for any CJS dependencies of external Svelte components and ask Vite to pre-bundle them by automatically adding them to Vite's optimizeDeps.include which will use esbuild to convert them to ESM. A side effect of this approach is that it takes longer to load the initial page. If this becomes noticable, try setting experimental.prebundleSvelteLibraries: true in svelte.config.js. Note that this option is experimental.

If you are still encountering issues we recommend checking the list of known Vite issues most commonly affecting SvelteKit users and searching both the Vite issue tracker and the issue tracker of the library in question. Sometimes issues can be worked around by fiddling with the optimizeDeps or ssr config values.

How do I use X with SvelteKit?

Make sure you've read the documentation section on integrations. If you're still having trouble, solutions to common issues are listed below.

How do I setup a database?

Put the code to query your database in endpoints - don't query the database in .svelte files. You can create a db.js or similar that sets up a connection immediately and makes the client accessible throughout the app as a singleton. You can execute any one-time setup code in hooks.js and import your database helpers into any endpoint that needs them.

How do I use middleware?

adapter-node builds a middleware that you can use with your own server for production mode. In dev, you can add middleware to Vite by using a Vite plugin. For example:

ts
/** @type {import('vite').Plugin} */
const myPlugin = {
  name: 'log-request-middleware',
  configureServer(server) {
    server.middlewares.use((req, res, next) => {
      console.log(`Got request ${req.url}`);
      next();
    });
  }
};
 
/** @type {import('@sveltejs/kit').Config} */
const config = {
  kit: {
    vite: {
      plugins: [myPlugin]
    }
  }
};
 
export default config;

See Vite's configureServer docs for more details including how to control ordering.

How do I use a client-side only library that depends on document or window?

If you need access to the document or window variables or otherwise need code to run only on the client-side you can wrap it in a browser check:

ts
import { browser } from '$app/env';
 
if (browser) {
  // client-only code here
}

You can also run code in onMount if you'd like to run it after the component has been first rendered to the DOM:

ts
import { onMount } from 'svelte';
 
onMount(async () => {
  const { method } = await import('some-browser-only-library');
  method('hello world');
});

If the library you'd like to use is side-effect free you can also statically import it and it will be tree-shaken out in the server-side build where onMount will be automatically replaced with a no-op:

ts
import { onMount } from 'svelte';
import { method } from 'some-browser-only-library';
 
onMount(() => {
  method('hello world');
});

Otherwise, if the library has side effects and you'd still prefer to use static imports, check out vite-plugin-iso-import to support the ?client import suffix. The import will be stripped out in SSR builds. However, note that you will lose the ability to use VS Code Intellisense if you use this method.

ts
import { onMount } from 'svelte';
import { method } from 'some-browser-only-library?client';
 
onMount(() => {
  method('hello world');
});

Does it work with Yarn 2?

Sort of. The Plug'n'Play feature, aka 'pnp', is broken (it deviates from the Node module resolution algorithm, and doesn't yet work with native JavaScript modules which SvelteKit — along with an increasing number of packages — uses). You can use nodeLinker: 'node-modules' in your .yarnrc.yml file to disable pnp, but it's probably easier to just use npm or pnpm, which is similarly fast and efficient but without the compatibility headaches.

See also the Svelte FAQ for questions relating to Svelte directly.

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