signal-router

@01edu/router-signal

Tiny SPA routing helpers built on top of @preact/signals that treat the URL as your application state.

Why URL as storage

Using the URL as the single source of truth gives you, for free:

• Shareable and bookmarkable state: copy the URL to reproduce the exact view and filters.
• Native navigation: back/forward buttons, reload, and deep links just work.
• Durable state: survives reloads and tab restores.
• Zero extra state containers: no bespoke stores, reducers, or custom hooks.
• Observable with minimal invalidation: we expose simple reads backed by computed signals; you don’t author new signals.

This package embraces that: it exposes just a few primitives that read/write the URL and let the browser do the rest.

What you get

• A — a typed anchor that performs client-side navigation for same-origin paths
• navigate — programmatic navigation using history.pushState/replaceState
• replaceParams — rebuild query strings in a predictable way
• url — reactive, read-only helpers: path, hash, params, equals

Trailing slashes are normalized away (/users/ → /users), and query parameter order doesn’t matter when comparing URLs.

Quick start

Use the A component instead of anchors. It preserves all native behaviors (open in new tab, copy link address, etc.) and does SPA navigation for same-origin, non-/api/* URLs.

import { A } from '@01edu/router-signal'

export function Nav() {
  return (
    <nav>
      <A href='/'>Home</A>
      <A href='/users' params={{ page: 2 }}>Users (page 2)</A>
      <A href='https://example.com'>External (normal link)</A>
    </nav>
  )
}

Programmatic navigation:

Always prefer using an A over a navigate, use of navigate in onClick are code smells.

import { navigate } from '@01edu/router-signal'

// Navigate to /users?tab=active
navigate({ href: '/users', params: { tab: 'active' } })

// Replace current entry and set a hash
navigate({ hash: 'details', replace: true })

Read the current URL reactively (no extra hooks or signals):

import { effect } from '@preact/signals'
import { url } from '@01edu/router-signal'

// All properties are signals, so it's reactive.
effect(() => {
  if (url.path === '/users') {
    // ...
  }

  console.log(url.hash) // e.g. "#details"
  console.log(url.params.page) // "2" | null
})

// Order-insensitive equality by origin, path, and query values
url.equals(new URL('/users?page=2', location.origin)) // true or false

API

<A>

Props:

• href?: string — target path or URL
• hash?: string — fragment without leading #
• params?: Record<string, string | number | boolean | null | undefined> — query updates
• replace?: boolean — use history.replaceState instead of pushState
• All standard Preact anchor attributes (class, target, rel, …)

Semantics for params values:

• true → include key with empty value (?key)
• false or null/undefined → remove key
• string | number | boolean → set as value (?key=...)

Examples:

import { A, replaceParams } from '@01edu/router-signal';

// Merge params into the URL:
<A href="/users" params={{ page: 3 }}>Users page 3</A>

// Replace current params entirely:
<A href="/users" params={replaceParams({ page: 1, filter: true })}>
  Users page 1 (filter on)
</A>

// Clear all params:
<A href="/users" params={replaceParams()}>
  Users (no query)
</A>

// External and /api are normal links:
<A href="https://example.com">External</A>
<A href="/api/report.csv" download>
  Download CSV
</A>

Behavioral details:

• If params is omitted and you only change the hash (or keep the same path), current query parameters are preserved.
• Trailing slashes are removed from href automatically.

navigate(props)

Programmatic client-side navigation.

type ParamValue = string | number | boolean | null | undefined;

navigate({
  href?: string,
  hash?: string,
  params?: Record<string, ParamValue>,
  replace?: boolean,
}): void

Examples:

import { navigate, replaceParams } from '@01edu/router-signal'

// Go to /users?tab=active
navigate({ href: '/users', params: { tab: 'active' } })

// Toggle a boolean flag (?filter):
navigate({ params: { filter: true } })
navigate({ params: { filter: false } })

// Replace current entry instead of pushing:
navigate({ hash: 'details', replace: true })

// Replace all params with just ?page=2&filter:
navigate({ params: replaceParams({ page: 2, filter: true }) })

Notes:

• If params is omitted and only hash changes, existing query params are preserved.
• URLs are normalized to drop trailing /.

replaceParams(newParams?)

Replace the current query parameters wholesale. This returns an object suitable for the params field in navigate or <A>.

replaceParams(newParams?: Record<string, string | number | boolean | null | undefined>): Record<string, ParamValue>

• Starts by “deleting” all existing query keys.
• Then applies newParams using the same semantics as params:
  • true → ?key
  • false | null | undefined → remove key
  • other primitive → ?key=value

Internally this use a computed signals to only update if new params are added, not if there value changes

Examples:

import { navigate, replaceParams } from '@01edu/router-signal'

// Replace all params with page=2 and a boolean filter:
navigate({ params: replaceParams({ page: 2, filter: true }) })

// Clear all params:
navigate({ params: replaceParams() })

This eliminates accidental accumulation of stale keys when navigating across views, important for "pages changes".

url

A reactive view of the current URL. Reads are backed by signals internally, but you don’t create or pass around any new signals or hooks yourself.

type Url = {
  path: string // pathname without trailing slash, e.g. "/users"
  hash: string // includes the leading "#", or "" if none
  params: Record<string, string | null> // enumerable, values are string|null
  equals: (u: URL) => boolean // same-origin, same path, same query values (order-insensitive)
}

Examples:

import { url } from '@01edu/router-signal'

function isUsers() {
  return url.path === '/users'
}

const page = url.params.page // "2" | null
const hasFilter = url.params.filter !== null

url.equals(new URL('/users?page=2', location.origin)) // true/false

Notes:

• params is a proxy exposing string-or-null values. It’s enumerable, so Object.keys(url.params) and { ...url.params } work as expected.
• Query parameter ordering is ignored in equals.

Patterns (without new state)

Because the URL is the state, you rarely need custom signals or hooks. A few common patterns:

Active link:

import { A, url } from '@01edu/router-signal'

<A
  href='/users'
  class={url.path === '/users' ? 'active' : undefined}
  aria-current={url.path === '/users' ? 'page' : undefined}
>
  Users
</A>

Filter toggle:

import { A, url } from '@01edu/router-signal'

const isOn = url.params.filter !== null

<A params={{ filter: isOn ? false : true }}>
  {isOn ? 'Disable' : 'Enable'} filter
</A>

Pagination:

import { A, url } from '@01edu/router-signal';

const current = Number(url.params.page ?? '1');
const next = current + 1;
const prev = Math.max(1, current - 1);

<A params={{ page: prev }}>Prev</A>
<A params={{ page: next }}>Next</A>

Replace vs merge:

import { A, replaceParams } from '@01edu/router-signal';

// Merge: keep existing keys unless you override them
<A params={{ sort: 'name' }}>Sort by name</A>

// Replace: start fresh (prevents stale filters carrying over)
<A params={replaceParams({ sort: 'name' })}>Sort by name</A>

Behavior and constraints

• Same-origin only: SPA navigation is performed for your origin and non-/api/* paths. External URLs and /api/* fall back to normal anchors.
• Trailing slashes are removed from paths to keep equality checks stable.
• Hash includes the leading # (e.g. #details), or "" if none.
• Keyboard and modified-clicks behave like native anchors.
• Browser environment: this is designed for client-side apps (uses window.history and location).

Philosophy

This library is intentionally small. The browser already gives you a robust state container (the URL) and a navigation API (history).

We aim to provide a thin layer between preact signals and the browser URL, this ensure your app are simpler to reason about, integrate better with the platform and don’t invent new state for things the URL already models perfectly.

We volontarly have "bring your own" approach to things like validation, typesafety, params assertion, and in most case found it wasn't even nescessary.

License

MIT