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Xstate router

XState Router. Add routes to your XState machine.

From carloslfu·Updated May 5, 2026·View on GitHub·

XState Router. Add routes to your XState machine and maintain it in sync with the actual route. The project is written primarily in TypeScript, distributed under the MIT License license, first published in 2018. Key topics include: javascript, react, state-machine, state-management, statecharts.

Latest release: v0.4.3
March 30, 2020View Changelog →

xstate-router

XState Router. Add routes to your XState machine and maintain it in sync with the actual route.

Use

Install the library with npm i xstate-router.

If you don't have XState installed, install it: npm i xstate

Try the live example here: https://codesandbox.io/s/rllly3pyxp.

The routerMachine function returns an interpreter:

javascript
import { routerMachine } from 'xstate-router' const machineConfig = { initial: 'main', context: { myValue: 0 }, states: { main: { meta: { path: '/' } }, blog: { meta: { path: '/blog' } }, }, } const service = routerMachine({ config: machineConfig, options, initialContext, }) // The state changes on a route change and the route changes on a state change. service.onTransition(state => console.log(state.value)) // The context is enhanced with router properties. service.onChange(ctx => console.log(ctx)) /* Context { myValue: 0, // Router properties: match, location, history, } */

Use with React Hooks

javascript
import { useRouterMachine } from 'xstate-router' const config = { initial: 'home', states: { home: { meta: { path: '/' }, on: { NEXT: 'about' } }, about: { meta: { path: '/about' }, on: { NEXT: 'dashboard' } }, dashboard: { meta: { path: '/dashboard' }, initial: 'login', on: { NEXT: 'home' }, states: { loggedIn: { initial: 'main', states: { main: { meta: { path: '/dashboard/main' } }, data: { meta: { path: '/dashboard/data' } } } }, login: { meta: { path: '/dashboard/login' }, on: { LoggedIn: 'loggedIn' } } } } } } function App() { const service = useRouterMachine({ config }) return <div>{service.state.value}</div> }

Enhanced context

  1. match:
    Tells you whether the route in the location matches the current state's path. If it matches it contains an object holding properties for each route parameter's value if the path was parameterized. Examples: null (not matching), {} (no parameters), { param1: 4711 }
  2. location:
    The current value of history.location
  3. history:
    routerMachine(...) accepts a history object as fourth parameter. If it is missing it defaults to createBrowserHistory() (from package 'history') and is published in the context.

if you translate to a state having a parameterized route then you have to ensure that context.match contains the values of those parameters. Otherwise the placeholder is shown in the route. Example:

javascript
states: { list: { meta: { path: '/items' }, on: { ShowDetails: { target: 'details', actions: assign((ctx, event) => ({ ...ctx, match: { id: event.item } })) } } } details: { meta: { path: '/items/:id/details'} } }

where the event trigger could look like this:

html
<button onClick={() => this.send('ShowDetails', { item: 817 })}>Show details...</button>

Paths

Paths could have parameters such as /items/:id/details and regular expressions, for more information please read this: https://github.com/pillarjs/path-to-regexp.

Router events

If a route changes then a parameterized event 'route-changed' is fired: e.g. { dueToStateTransition: "true", route: "/blog", service: /* the xstate interpreter */ }.

  1. If the route changes because a state is entered which has a route configured, then dueToStateTransition is true. If the route changes because the location was changed (either by the user in the browsers location bar or by a script changing history.location), then dueToStateTransition is false.
  2. route gives you the current route which causes the event
  3. service provides the xstate interpreter which can be used to send another event.

Placing an on: 'router-changed' event at a state can be used to avoid leaving the current state if the route changes. Think of a state which might show unsaved data and you want to ask the user 'Leave and loose unsaved data?'. If you decide to accept the new route anyway you have to resend the event:

javascript
on: { 'route-changed': { cond: (context, event) => event.dueToStateTransition === false && !event.processed, // interfere only new events actions: (context, event) => { if (context.unsavedData) return; // suppress current route change event.processed = true; // mark event as processed event.service.send(event); // resend the event to establish the origin route change } } },

Contributors

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This article is auto-generated from carloslfu/xstate-router via the GitHub API.Last fetched: 6/20/2026