Actions

Livewire actions are methods on your component that can be triggered by frontend interactions like clicking a button or submitting a form. They provide the developer experience of being able to call a PHP method directly from the browser, allowing you to focus on the logic of your application without getting bogged down writing boilerplate code connecting your application's frontend and backend.

Let's explore a basic example of calling a save action on a CreatePost component:

<?php
 
namespace App\Livewire;
 
use Livewire\Component;
use App\Models\Post;
 
class CreatePost extends Component
{
    public $title = '';
 
    public $content = '';
 
    public function save()
    {
        Post::create([
            'title' => $this->title,
            'content' => $this->content,
        ]);
 
        return redirect()->to('/posts');
    }
 
    public function render()
    {
        return view('livewire.create-post');
    }
}

<form wire:submit="save"> 
    <input type="text" wire:model="title">
 
    <textarea wire:model="content"></textarea>
 
    <button type="submit">Save</button>
</form>

In the above example, when a user submits the form by clicking "Save", wire:submit intercepts the submit event and calls the save() action on the server.

In essence, actions are a way to easily map user interactions to server-side functionality without the hassle of submitting and handling AJAX requests manually.

#Refreshing a component

Sometimes you may want to trigger a simple "refresh" of your component. For example, if you have a component checking the status of something in the database, you may want to show a button to your users allowing them to refresh the displayed results.

You can do this using Livewire's simple $refresh action anywhere you would normally reference your own component method:

<button type="button" wire:click="$refresh">...</button>

When the $refresh action is triggered, Livewire will make a server-roundtrip and re-render your component without calling any methods.

It's important to note that any pending data updates in your component (for example wire:model bindings) will be applied on the server when the component is refreshed.

Internally, Livewire uses the name "commit" to refer to any time a Livewire component is updated on the server. If you prefer this terminology, you can use the $commit helper instead of $refresh. The two are identical.

<button type="button" wire:click="$commit">...</button>

You can also trigger a component refresh using AlpineJS in your Livewire component:

<button type="button" x-on:click="$wire.$refresh()">...</button>

Learn more by reading the documentation for using Alpine inside Livewire.

#Confirming an action

When allowing users to perform dangerous actions—such as deleting a post from the database—you may want to show them a confirmation alert to verify that they wish to perform that action.

Livewire makes this easy by providing a simple directive called wire:confirm:

<button
    type="button"
    wire:click="delete"
    wire:confirm="Are you sure you want to delete this post?"
>
    Delete post 
</button>

When wire:confirm is added to an element containing a Livewire action, when a user tries to trigger that action, they will be presented with a confirmation dialog containing the provided message. They can either press "OK" to confirm the action, or press "Cancel" or hit the escape key.

For more information, visit the wire:confirm documentation page.

#Event listeners

Livewire supports a variety of event listeners, allowing you to respond to various types of user interactions:

Because the event name after wire: can be anything, Livewire supports any browser event you might need to listen for. For example, to listen for transitionend, you can use wire:transitionend.

#Listening for specific keys

You can use one of Livewire's convenient aliases to narrow down key press event listeners to a specific key or combination of keys.

For example, to perform a search when a user hits Enter after typing into a search box, you can use wire:keydown.enter:

<input wire:model="query" wire:keydown.enter="searchPosts">

You can chain more key aliases after the first to listen for combinations of keys. For example, if you would like to listen for the Enter key only while the Shift key is pressed, you may write the following:

<input wire:keydown.shift.enter="...">

Below is a list of all the available key modifiers:

#Event handler modifiers

Livewire also includes helpful modifiers to make common event-handling tasks trivial.

For example, if you need to call event.preventDefault() from inside an event listener, you can suffix the event name with .prevent:

<input wire:keydown.prevent="...">

Here is a full list of all the available event listener modifiers and their functions:

Because wire: uses Alpine's x-on directive under the hood, these modifiers are made available to you by Alpine. For more context on when you should use these modifiers, consult the Alpine Events documentation.

#Handling third-party events

Livewire also supports listening for custom events fired by third-party libraries.

For example, let's imagine you're using the Trix rich text editor in your project and you want to listen for the trix-change event to capture the editor's content. You can accomplish this using the wire:trix-change directive:

<form wire:submit="save">
    <!-- ... -->
 
    <trix-editor
        wire:trix-change="setPostContent($event.target.value)"
    ></trix-editor>
 
    <!-- ... -->
</form>

In this example, the setPostContent action is called whenever the trix-change event is triggered, updating the content property in the Livewire component with the current value of the Trix editor.

<trix-editor
   x-on:trix-change="$wire.content = $event.target.value"
></trix-editor>

#Listening for dispatched custom events

If your application dispatches custom events from Alpine, you can also listen for those using Livewire:

<div wire:custom-event="...">
 
    <!-- Deeply nested within this component: -->
    <button x-on:click="$dispatch('custom-event')">...</button>
 
</div>

When the button is clicked in the above example, the custom-event event is dispatched and bubbles up to the root of the Livewire component where wire:custom-event catches it and invokes a given action.

If you want to listen for an event dispatched somewhere else in your application, you will need to wait instead for the event to bubble up to the window object and listen for it there. Fortunately, Livewire makes this easy by allowing you to add a simple .window modifier to any event listener:

<div wire:custom-event.window="...">
    <!-- ... -->
</div>
 
<!-- Dispatched somewhere on the page outside the component: -->
<button x-on:click="$dispatch('custom-event')">...</button>

#Disabling inputs while a form is being submitted

Consider the CreatePost example we previously discussed:

<form wire:submit="save">
    <input wire:model="title">
 
    <textarea wire:model="content"></textarea>
 
    <button type="submit">Save</button>
</form>

When a user clicks "Save", a network request is sent to the server to call the save() action on the Livewire component.

But, let's imagine that a user is filling out this form on a slow internet connection. The user clicks "Save" and nothing happens initially because the network request takes longer than usual. They might wonder if the submission failed and attempt to click the "Save" button again while the first request is still being handled.

In this case, there would be two requests for the same action being processed at the same time.

To prevent this scenario, Livewire automatically disables the submit button and all form inputs inside the <form> element while a wire:submit action is being processed. This ensures that a form isn't accidentally submitted twice.

To further lessen the confusion for users on slower connections, it is often helpful to show some loading indicator such as a subtle background color change or SVG animation.

Livewire provides a wire:loading directive that makes it trivial to show and hide loading indicators anywhere on a page. Here's a short example of using wire:loading to show a loading message below the "Save" button:

<form wire:submit="save">
    <textarea wire:model="content"></textarea>
 
    <button type="submit">Save</button>
 
    <span wire:loading>Saving...</span> 
</form>

wire:loading is a powerful feature with a variety of more powerful features. Check out the full loading documentation for more information.

#Passing parameters

Livewire allows you to pass parameters from your Blade template to the actions in your component, giving you the opportunity to provide an action additional data or state from the frontend when the action is called.

For example, let's imagine you have a ShowPosts component that allows users to delete a post. You can pass the post's ID as a parameter to the delete() action in your Livewire component. Then, the action can fetch the relevant post and delete it from the database:

<?php
 
namespace App\Livewire;
 
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use Livewire\Component;
use App\Models\Post;
 
class ShowPosts extends Component
{
    public function delete($id)
    {
        $post = Post::findOrFail($id);
 
        $this->authorize('delete', $post);
 
        $post->delete();
    }
 
    public function render()
    {
        return view('livewire.show-posts', [
            'posts' => Auth::user()->posts,
        ]);
    }
}

<div>
    @foreach ($posts as $post)
        <div wire:key="{{ $post->id }}">
            <h1>{{ $post->title }}</h1>
            <span>{{ $post->content }}</span>
 
            <button wire:click="delete({{ $post->id }})">Delete</button> 
        </div>
    @endforeach
</div>

For a post with an ID of 2, the "Delete" button in the Blade template above will render in the browser as:

<button wire:click="delete(2)">Delete</button>

When this button is clicked, the delete() method will be called and $id will be passed in with a value of "2".

As an added convenience, you may automatically resolve Eloquent models by a corresponding model ID that is provided to an action as a parameter. This is very similar to route model binding. To get started, type-hint an action parameter with a model class and the appropriate model will automatically be retrieved from the database and passed to the action instead of the ID:

<?php
 
namespace App\Livewire;
 
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use Livewire\Component;
use App\Models\Post;
 
class ShowPosts extends Component
{
    public function delete(Post $post) 
    {
        $this->authorize('delete', $post);
 
        $post->delete();
    }
 
    public function render()
    {
        return view('livewire.show-posts', [
            'posts' => Auth::user()->posts,
        ]);
    }
}

#Dependency injection

You can take advantage of Laravel's dependency injection system by type-hinting parameters in your action's signature. Livewire and Laravel will automatically resolve the action's dependencies from the container:

<?php
 
namespace App\Livewire;
 
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use Livewire\Component;
use App\Repositories\PostRepository;
 
class ShowPosts extends Component
{
    public function delete(PostRepository $posts, $postId) 
    {
        $posts->deletePost($postId);
    }
 
    public function render()
    {
        return view('livewire.show-posts', [
            'posts' => Auth::user()->posts,
        ]);
    }
}

<div>
    @foreach ($posts as $post)
        <div wire:key="{{ $post->id }}">
            <h1>{{ $post->title }}</h1>
            <span>{{ $post->content }}</span>
 
            <button wire:click="delete({{ $post->id }})">Delete</button> 
        </div>
    @endforeach
</div>

In this example, the delete() method receives an instance of PostRepository resolved via Laravel's service container before receiving the provided $postId parameter.

#Calling actions from Alpine

Livewire integrates seamlessly with Alpine. In fact, under the hood, every Livewire component is also an Alpine component. This means you can take full advantage of Alpine within your components to add JavaScript powered client-side interactivity.

To make this pairing even more powerful, Livewire exposes a magic $wire object to Alpine that can be treated as a JavaScript representation of your PHP component. In addition to accessing and mutating public properties via $wire, you can call actions. When an action is invoked on the $wire object, the corresponding PHP method will be invoked on your backend Livewire component:

<button x-on:click="$wire.save()">Save Post</button>

Or, to illustrate a more complex example, you might use Alpine's x-intersect utility to trigger a incrementViewCount() Livewire action when a given element is visible on the page:

<div x-intersect="$wire.incrementViewCount()">...</div>

#Passing parameters

Any parameters you pass to the $wire method will also be passed to the PHP class method. For example, consider the following Livewire action:

public function addTodo($todo)
{
    $this->todos[] = $todo;
}

Within your component's Blade template, you can invoke this action via Alpine, providing the parameter that should be given to the action:

<div x-data="{ todo: '' }">
    <input type="text" x-model="todo">
 
    <button x-on:click="$wire.addTodo(todo)">Add Todo</button>
</div>

If a user had typed in "Take out the trash" into the text input and the pressed the "Add Todo" button, the addTodo() method will be triggered with the $todo parameter value being "Take out the trash".

#Receiving return values

For even more power, invoked $wire actions return a promise while the network request is processing. When the server response is received, the promise resolves with the value returned by the backend action.

For example, consider a Livewire component that has the following action:

use App\Models\Post;
 
public function getPostCount()
{
    return Post::count();
}

Using $wire, the action may be invoked and its returned value resolved:

<span x-init="$el.innerHTML = await $wire.getPostCount()"></span>

In this example, if the getPostCount() method returns "10", the <span> tag will also contain "10".

Alpine knowledge is not required when using Livewire; however, it's an extremely powerful tool and knowing Alpine will augment your Livewire experience and productivity.

#Livewire's "hybrid" JavaScript functions

Sometimes there are actions in your component that don't need to communicate with the server and can be more efficiently written using only JavaScript.

In these cases, rather than writing the actions inside your Blade template or another file, your component action may return the JavaScript function as a string. If the action is marked with the #[Js] attribute, it will be callable from your application's frontend:

For example:

<?php
 
namespace App\Livewire;
 
use Livewire\Attributes\Js;
use Livewire\Component;
use App\Models\Post;
 
class SearchPosts extends Component
{
    public $query = '';
 
    #[Js] 
    public function resetQuery()
    {
        return <<<'JS'
            $wire.query = '';
        JS;
    }
 
    public function render()
    {
        return view('livewire.search-posts', [
            'posts' => Post::whereTitle($this->query)->get(),
        ]);
    }
}

<div>
    <input wire:model.live="query">
 
    <button wire:click="resetQuery">Reset Search</button> 
 
    @foreach ($posts as $post)
        <!-- ... -->
    @endforeach
</div>

In the above example, when the "Reset Search" button is pressed, the text input will be cleared without sending any requests to the server.

#Evaluating one-off JavaScript expressions

In addition to designating entire methods to be evaluated in JavaScript, you can use the js() method to evaluate smaller, individual expressions.

This is generally useful for performing some kind of client-side follow-up after a server-side action is performed.

For example, here is an example of a CreatePost component that triggers a client-side alert dialog after the post is saved to the database:

<?php
 
namespace App\Livewire;
 
use Livewire\Component;
 
class CreatePost extends Component
{
    public $title = '';
 
    public function save()
    {
        // ...
 
        $this->js("alert('Post saved!')"); 
    }
}

The JavaScript expression alert('Post saved!') will now be executed on the client after the post has been saved to the database on the server.

Just like #[Js] methods, you can access the current component's $wire object inside the expression.

#Magic actions

Livewire provides a set of "magic" actions that allow you to perform common tasks in your components without defining custom methods. These magic actions can be used within event listeners defined in your Blade templates.

#$parent

The $parent magic variable allows you to access parent component properties and call parent component actions from a child component:

<button wire:click="$parent.removePost({{ $post->id }})">Remove</button>

In the above example, if a parent component has a removePost() action, a child can call it directly from its Blade template using $parent.removePost().

#$set

The $set magic action allows you to update a property in your Livewire component directly from the Blade template. To use $set, provide the property you want to update and the new value as arguments:

<button wire:click="$set('query', '')">Reset Search</button>

In this example, when the button is clicked, a network request is dispatched that sets the $query property in the component to ''.

#$refresh

The $refresh action triggers a re-render of your Livewire component. This can be useful when updating the component's view without changing any property values:

<button wire:click="$refresh">Refresh</button>

When the button is clicked, the component will re-render, allowing you to see the latest changes in the view.

#$toggle

The $toggle action is used to toggle the value of a boolean property in your Livewire component:

<button wire:click="$toggle('sortAsc')">
    Sort {{ $sortAsc ? 'Descending' : 'Ascending' }}
</button>

In this example, when the button is clicked, the $sortAsc property in the component will toggle between true and false.

#$dispatch

The $dispatch action allows you to dispatch a Livewire event directly in the browser. Below is an example of a button that, when clicked, will dispatch the post-deleted event:

<button type="submit" wire:click="$dispatch('post-deleted')">Delete Post</button>

#$event

The $event action may be used within event listeners like wire:click. This action gives you access to the actual JavaScript event that was triggered, allowing you to reference the triggering element and other relevant information:

<input type="text" wire:keydown.enter="search($event.target.value)">

When the enter key is pressed while a user is typing in the input above, the contents of the input will be passed as a parameter to the search() action.

#Using magic actions from Alpine

You can also call magic actions from Alpine using the $wire object. For example, you may use the $wire object to invoke the $refresh magic action:

<button x-on:click="$wire.$refresh()">Refresh</button>

#Skipping re-renders

Sometimes there might be an action in your component with no side effects that would change the rendered Blade template when the action is invoked. If so, you can skip the render portion of Livewire's lifecycle by adding the #[Renderless] attribute above the action method.

To demonstrate, in the ShowPost component below, the "view count" is logged when the user has scrolled to the bottom of the post:

<?php
 
namespace App\Livewire;
 
use Livewire\Attributes\Renderless;
use Livewire\Component;
use App\Models\Post;
 
class ShowPost extends Component
{
    public Post $post;
 
    public function mount(Post $post)
    {
        $this->post = $post;
    }
 
    #[Renderless] 
    public function incrementViewCount()
    {
        $this->post->incrementViewCount();
    }
 
    public function render()
    {
        return view('livewire.show-post');
    }
}

<div>
    <h1>{{ $post->title }}</h1>
    <p>{{ $post->content }}</p>
 
    <div x-intersect="$wire.incrementViewCount()"></div>
</div>

The example above uses x-intersect, an Alpine utility that calls the expression when the element enters the viewport (typically used to detect when a user scrolls to an element further down the page).

As you can see, when a user scrolls to the bottom of the post, incrementViewCount() is invoked. Since #[Renderless] was added to the action, the view is logged, but the template doesn't re-render and no part of the page is affected.

If you prefer to not utilize method attributes or need to conditionally skip rendering, you may invoke the skipRender() method in your component action:

<?php
 
namespace App\Livewire;
 
use Livewire\Component;
use App\Models\Post;
 
class ShowPost extends Component
{
    public Post $post;
 
    public function mount(Post $post)
    {
        $this->post = $post;
    }
 
    public function incrementViewCount()
    {
        $this->post->incrementViewCount();
 
        $this->skipRender(); 
    }
 
    public function render()
    {
        return view('livewire.show-post');
    }
}

#Security concerns

Remember that any public method in your Livewire component can be called from the client-side, even without an associated wire:click handler that invokes it. In these scenarios, users can still trigger the action from the browser's DevTools.

Below are three examples of easy-to-miss vulnerabilities in Livewire components. Each will show the vulnerable component first and the secure component after. As an exercise, try spotting the vulnerabilities in the first example before viewing the solution.

If you are having difficulty spotting the vulnerabilities and that makes you concerned about your ability to keep your own applications secure, remember all these vulnerabilities apply to standard web applications that use requests and controllers. If you use a component method as a proxy for a controller method, and its parameters as a proxy for request input, you should be able to apply your existing application security knowledge to your Livewire code.

#Always authorize action parameters

Just like controller request input, it's imperative to authorize action parameters since they are arbitrary user input.

Below is a ShowPosts component where users can view all their posts on one page. They can delete any post they like using one of the post's "Delete" buttons.

Here is a vulnerable version of the component:

<?php
 
namespace App\Livewire;
 
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use Livewire\Component;
use App\Models\Post;
 
class ShowPosts extends Component
{
    public function delete($id)
    {
        $post = Post::find($id);
 
        $post->delete();
    }
 
    public function render()
    {
        return view('livewire.show-posts', [
            'posts' => Auth::user()->posts,
        ]);
    }
}

<div>
    @foreach ($posts as $post)
        <div wire:key="{{ $post->id }}">
            <h1>{{ $post->title }}</h1>
            <span>{{ $post->content }}</span>
 
            <button wire:click="delete({{ $post->id }})">Delete</button>
        </div>
    @endforeach
</div>

Remember that a malicious user can call delete() directly from a JavaScript console, passing any parameters they would like to the action. This means that a user viewing one of their posts can delete another user's post by passing the un-owned post ID to delete().

To protect against this, we need to authorize that the user owns the post about to be deleted:

<?php
 
namespace App\Livewire;
 
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use Livewire\Component;
use App\Models\Post;
 
class ShowPosts extends Component
{
    public function delete($id)
    {
        $post = Post::find($id);
 
        $this->authorize('delete', $post); 
 
        $post->delete();
    }
 
    public function render()
    {
        return view('livewire.show-posts', [
            'posts' => Auth::user()->posts,
        ]);
    }
}

#Always authorize server-side

Like standard Laravel controllers, Livewire actions can be called by any user, even if there isn't an affordance for invoking the action in the UI.

Consider the following BrowsePosts component where any user can view all the posts in the application, but only administrators can delete a post:

<?php
 
namespace App\Livewire;
 
use Livewire\Component;
use App\Models\Post;
 
class BrowsePosts extends Component
{
    public function deletePost($id)
    {
        $post = Post::find($id);
 
        $post->delete();
    }
 
    public function render()
    {
        return view('livewire.browse-posts', [
            'posts' => Post::all(),
        ]);
    }
}

<div>
    @foreach ($posts as $post)
        <div wire:key="{{ $post->id }}">
            <h1>{{ $post->title }}</h1>
            <span>{{ $post->content }}</span>
 
            @if (Auth::user()->isAdmin())
                <button wire:click="deletePost({{ $post->id }})">Delete</button>
            @endif
        </div>
    @endforeach
</div>

As you can see, only administrators can see the "Delete" button; however, any user can call deletePost() on the component from the browser's DevTools.

To patch this vulnerability, we need to authorize the action on the server like so:

<?php
 
namespace App\Livewire;
 
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use Livewire\Component;
use App\Models\Post;
 
class BrowsePosts extends Component
{
    public function deletePost($id)
    {
        if (! Auth::user()->isAdmin) { 
            abort(403);
        }
 
        $post = Post::find($id);
 
        $post->delete();
    }
 
    public function render()
    {
        return view('livewire.browse-posts', [
            'posts' => Post::all(),
        ]);
    }
}

With this change, only administrators can delete a post from this component.

#Keep dangerous methods protected or private

Every public method inside your Livewire component is callable from the client. Even methods you haven't referenced inside a wire:click handler. To prevent a user from calling a method that isn't intended to be callable client-side, you should mark them as protected or private. By doing so, you restrict the visibility of that sensitive method to the component's class and its subclasses, ensuring they cannot be called from the client-side.

Consider the BrowsePosts example that we previously discussed, where users can view all posts in your application, but only administrators can delete posts. In the Always authorize server-side section, we made the action secure by adding server-side authorization. Now imagine we refactor the actual deletion of the post into a dedicated method like you might do in order to simplify your code:

// Warning: This snippet demonstrates what NOT to do...
<?php
 
namespace App\Livewire;
 
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use Livewire\Component;
use App\Models\Post;
 
class BrowsePosts extends Component
{
    public function deletePost($id)
    {
        if (! Auth::user()->isAdmin) {
            abort(403);
        }
 
        $this->delete($id); 
    }
 
    public function delete($postId)  
    {
        $post = Post::find($postId);
 
        $post->delete();
    }
 
    public function render()
    {
        return view('livewire.browse-posts', [
            'posts' => Post::all(),
        ]);
    }
}

<div>
    @foreach ($posts as $post)
        <div wire:key="{{ $post->id }}">
            <h1>{{ $post->title }}</h1>
            <span>{{ $post->content }}</span>
 
            <button wire:click="deletePost({{ $post->id }})">Delete</button>
        </div>
    @endforeach
</div>

As you can see, we refactored the post deletion logic into a dedicated method named delete(). Even though this method isn't referenced anywhere in our template, if a user gained knowledge of its existence, they would be able to call it from the browser's DevTools because it is public.

To remedy this, we can mark the method as protected or private. Once the method is marked as protected or private, an error will be thrown if a user tries to invoke it:

<?php
 
namespace App\Livewire;
 
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use Livewire\Component;
use App\Models\Post;
 
class BrowsePosts extends Component
{
    public function deletePost($id)
    {
        if (! Auth::user()->isAdmin) {
            abort(403);
        }
 
        $this->delete($id);
    }
 
    protected function delete($postId) 
    {
        $post = Post::find($postId);
 
        $post->delete();
    }
 
    public function render()
    {
        return view('livewire.browse-posts', [
            'posts' => Post::all(),
        ]);
    }
}