Link options

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In SvelteKit, <a> elements (rather than framework-specific <Link> components) are used to navigate between the routes of your app. If the user clicks on a link whose href is 'owned' by the app (as opposed to, say, a link to an external site) then SvelteKit will navigate to the new page by importing its code and then calling any load functions it needs to fetch data.

You can customise the behaviour of links with data-sveltekit-* attributes. These can be applied to the <a> itself, or to a parent element.

data-sveltekit-prefetchpermalink

To get a head start on importing the code and fetching the page's data, use the data-sveltekit-prefetch attribute, which will start loading everything as soon as the user hovers over the link (on a desktop) or touches it (on mobile), rather than waiting for the click event to trigger navigation. Typically, this buys us an extra couple of hundred milliseconds, which is the difference between a user interface that feels laggy, and one that feels snappy.

To apply this behaviour across the board, add the attribute to a parent element (or even the <body> in your src/app.html):

src/routes/+layout.svelte

<main data-sveltekit-prefetch>
  <slot />
</main>

You can also programmatically invoke prefetch from $app/navigation.

data-sveltekit-reloadpermalink

Occasionally, we need to tell SvelteKit not to handle a link, but allow the browser to handle it. Adding a data-sveltekit-reload attribute to a link...

<a data-sveltekit-reload href="/path">Path</a>

...will cause a full-page navigation when the link is clicked.

Links with a rel="external" attribute will receive the same treatment. In addition, they will be ignored during prerendering.

data-sveltekit-noscrollpermalink

When navigating to internal links, SvelteKit mirrors the browser's default navigation behaviour: it will change the scroll position to 0,0 so that the user is at the very top left of the page (unless the link includes a #hash, in which case it will scroll to the element with a matching ID).

In certain cases, you may wish to disable this behaviour. Adding a data-sveltekit-noscroll attribute to a link...

<a href="path" data-sveltekit-noscroll>Path</a>

...will prevent scrolling after the link is clicked.

Disabling optionspermalink

To disable any of these options inside an element where they have been enabled, use the "off" value:

<div data-sveltekit-prefetch>
  <!-- these links will be prefetched -->  <a href="/a">a</a>
  <a href="/b">b</a>
  <a href="/c">c</a>

  <div data-sveltekit-prefetch="off">
    <!-- these links will NOT be prefetched -->    <a href="/d">d</a>
    <a href="/e">e</a>
    <a href="/f">f</a>
  </div>
</div>

To apply an attribute to an element conditionally, do this:

<div data-sveltekit-reload={shouldReload ? '' : 'off'}>

This works because in HTML, <element attribute> is equivalent to <element attribute="">

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