New File System Route Conventions

April 7, 2022 · View on GitHub

Our current route conventions grew organically and then Jamie hit us with some solid ideas as a catalyst for this. We feel like we have a better idea of what folks need out of the convention especially as React Router apps are being migrated to Remix.

Goals

There are several goals with these changes:

Make it easier to see the routes your app has defined
Allow co-location of code with routes
Decrease refactor/redesign friction
Help apps migrate to Remix

Example

routes/
  _auth.forgot-password.tsx
  _auth.login.tsx
  _auth.reset-password.tsx
  _auth.signup.tsx
  _auth.tsx
  _landing.about.tsx
  _landing.index.tsx
  _landing.tsx
  app.calendar.$day.tsx
  app.calendar.index.tsx
  app.calendar.tsx
  app.projects.$id.tsx
  app.projects.tsx
  app.tsx
  app_.projects.$id.roadmap.tsx
  app_.projects.$id.roadmap[.pdf].tsx

As React Router routes:

<Routes>
  <Route element={<Auth />}>
    <Route path="forgot-password" element={<Forgot />} />
    <Route path="login" element={<Login />} />
    <Route path="reset-password" element={<Reset />} />
    <Route path="signup" element={<Signup />} />
  </Route>
  <Route element={<Landing />}>
    <Route path="about" element={<About />} />
    <Route index element={<Index />} />
  </Route>
  <Route path="app" element={<App />}>
    <Route path="calendar" element={<Calendar />}>
      <Route path=":day" element={<Day />} />
      <Route index element={<CalendarIndex />} />
    </Route>
    <Route path="projects" element={<Projects />}>
      <Route path=":id" element={<Project />} />
    </Route>
  </Route>
  <Route path="app/projects/:id/roadmap" element={<Roadmap />} />
  <Route path="app/projects/:id/roadmap.pdf" />
</Routes>

Individual explanations:

filename	url	nests inside of...
`_auth.forgot-password.tsx`	`/forgot-password`	`_auth.tsx`
`_auth.login.tsx`	`/login`	`_auth.tsx`
`_auth.reset-password.tsx`	`/reset-password`	`_auth.tsx`
`_auth.signup.tsx`	`/signup`	`_auth.tsx`
`_auth.tsx`	n/a	`root.tsx`
`_landing.about.tsx`	`/about`	`_landing.tsx`
`_landing.index.tsx`	`/`	`_landing.tsx`
`_landing.tsx`	n/a	`root.tsx`
`app.calendar.$day.tsx`	`/app/calendar/:day`	`app.calendar.tsx`
`app.calendar.index.tsx`	`/app/calendar`	`app.calendar.tsx`
`app.projects.$id.tsx`	`/app/projects/:id`	`app.projects.tsx`
`app.projects.tsx`	`/app/projects`	`app.tsx`
`app.tsx`	`/app`	`root.tsx`
`app_.projects.$id.roadmap.tsx`	`/app/projects/:id/roadmap`	`root.tsx`
`app_.projects.$id.roadmap[.pdf].tsx`	`/app/projects/:id/roadmap.pdf`	n/a (resource route)

Conventions

filename	convention	behavior
`privacy.jsx`	filename	normal route
`pages.tos.jsx`	dot with no layout	normal route, "." -> "/"
`about.jsx`	filename with children	parent layout route
`about.contact.jsx`	dot	child route of layout
`about.index.jsx`	index filename	index route of layout
`about_.company.jsx`	trailing underscore	url segment, no layout
`_auth.jsx`	leading underscore	layout nesting, no url segment
`_auth.login.jsx`	leading underscore	child of pathless layout route
`users.$userId.jsx`	leading $	URL param
`docs.$.jsx`	bare $	splat route
`dashboard.route.jsx`	route suffix	optional, ignored completely
`investors/[index].jsx`	brackets	escapes conventional characters

Justification

Make it easier to see the routes your app has defined - just pop open "routes/" and they are all right there. Since file systems typically sort folders first, when you have dozens of routes it's hard to see which folders have layouts and which don't today. Now all related routes are sorted together.
Decrease refactor/redesign friction - while code editors are pretty good at fixing up imports when you move files around, and Remix has the "~" import alias, it's just generally easier to refactor a code base that doesn't have a bunch of nested folders. Remix will no longer force this.

Additionally, when redesigning the user interface, it's simpler to adjust the names of files rather than creating/deleting folders and moving routes around to change the way they nest.
Help apps migrate to Remix - Existing apps typically don't have a nested route folder structure like today's conventions. Moving to Remix is arduous because you have to deal with all of the imports.
Colocation - while the example is exclusively files, they are really just "import paths". So you could make a folder for a route instead and the index file will be imported, allowing all of a route's modules to live along side each other.

For example, these routes:

routes/
  _landing.about.tsx
  _landing.index.tsx
  _landing.tsx
  app.projects.tsx
  app.tsx
  app_.projects.$id.roadmap.tsx

Could be folders holding their own modules inside:

routes/
  _landing.about/
    index.tsx
    employee-profile-card.tsx
    get-employee-data.server.tsx
    team-photo.jpg
  _landing.index/
    index.tsx
    scroll-experience.tsx
  _landing/
    index.tsx
    header.tsx
    footer.tsx
  app.projects/
    project-card.tsx
    get-projects.server.tsx
    project-buttons.tsx
  app/
    index.tsx
    primary-nav.tsx
    footer.tsx
  app_.projects.$id.roadmap/
    index.tsx
    chart.tsx
    update-timeline.server.tsx

This is a bit more opinionated, but I think it's ultimately what most developers would prefer. Each route becomes its own "mini app" with all of it's dependencies together. With the routeIgnorePatterns option it's completely unclear which files are routes and which aren't.

Migration Path

You can actually just use remix.config.js right now if somebody writes the code:

const flatRoutes = require("remix-flat-routes");
exports.routes = defineRoutes => {
  // can't use `routes` folder right now, so point to a different folder
  flatRoutes("screens", defineRoutes);
}