developing-with-turbo-basics

Turbo Laravel Basics

Turbo Laravel is a package that integrates Turbo, a set of technologies for building modern web applications, with the Laravel framework. Turbo enhances user experience by enabling partial page updates, real-time interactions, and seamless navigation without full page reloads and with minimal JavaScript.

Philosophy: HTML Over the Wire

Hotwire (HTML Over the Wire) sends HTML instead of JSON from the server, letting the server handle rendering while keeping the browser's job simple. It combines four techniques:

1. Turbo Drive — Accelerates links and forms by replacing the <body> without full page loads.
2. Turbo Frames — Decomposes pages into independent segments that scope navigation and can lazy-load.
3. Turbo Streams — Delivers partial page changes over WebSocket, SSE, or in response to form submissions using eight actions (append, prepend, replace, update, remove, before, after, refresh).
4. Stimulus — A modest JavaScript framework for the HTML you already have, connecting behavior via data-controller, data-action, and data-target attributes.

Turbo Laravel provides the server-side tooling (Blade components, helpers, broadcasting, and testing utilities) to make these techniques work seamlessly with Laravel.

Turbo Drive

Turbo Drive intercepts all clicks on <a href> links to the same domain and all form submissions, turning them into fetch requests. It replaces the <body> and merges the <head>, keeping the JavaScript window and document objects persistent across navigations. This gives SPA-like speed without client-side routing.

Same deal with forms — their submissions become fetch requests and Turbo Drive follows the redirect and renders the HTML response.

IMPORTANT: Activate the developing-with-turbo-drive skill when starting out working on a feature.

Turbo Frames

Turbo Frames let you place independent segments inside <turbo-frame> elements that scope their navigation. All interaction within a frame (clicking links, submitting forms) happens within that frame, keeping the rest of the page intact. Frames can also lazy-load their content via a src attribute.

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Benefits: independent caching, parallelized execution, and mobile-ready segments.

IMPORTANT: Activate the developing-with-turbo-frames skill when working with Turbo Frames.

Turbo Streams

Turbo Streams let you change any part of the page using a <turbo-stream> element with eight actions: append, prepend, replace, update, remove, before, after, and refresh. They work both as HTTP responses and over WebSocket broadcasts.

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IMPORTANT: Activate the developing-with-turbo-streams skill when working with Turbo Streams.

Blade Components

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• <x-turbo::frame :id="$model"> — Renders a <turbo-frame> with auto DOM ID resolution. :id accepts a string, model instance, or [$model, 'prefix'] array.
• <x-turbo::stream action="append" :target="$model"> — Renders a <turbo-stream> element. Omits the <template> wrapper for brevity.
• <x-turbo::stream-from :source="$model" /> — Listens for broadcasts on the model's channel (private by default, add type="public" for public).
• <x-turbo::refreshes-with method="morph" scroll="preserve" /> — Configures page refresh behavior (morphing and scroll preservation).
• <x-turbo::exempts-page-from-cache /> — Adds <meta name="turbo-cache-control" content="no-cache">.
• <x-turbo::exempts-page-from-preview /> — Adds <meta name="turbo-cache-control" content="no-preview">.
• <x-turbo::page-requires-reload /> — Adds <meta name="turbo-visit-control" content="reload">.
• <x-turbo::page-view-transition /> — Adds <meta name="view-transition" content="same-origin">.

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Helpers & Directives

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• DOM IDs: dom_id($model) returns e.g. "post_1", dom_id($model, 'edit') returns "edit_post_1". Blade directive: @domid($model, 'prefix').
• DOM classes: dom_class($model) returns e.g. "post", dom_class($model, 'admin') returns "admin_post". Blade directive: @domclass($model, 'prefix').
• Channel: @channel($model) outputs the model's broadcast channel name.
• Conditional: @hotwirenative / @endhotwirenative shows content only for Hotwire Native visits. Also: @unlesshotwirenative, @turbonative / @endturbonative.

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Request Macros

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// Check if the request came from a Turbo Frame (optionally a specific one) $request->wasFromTurboFrame(); // bool $request->wasFromTurboFrame(dom_id($post, 'create_comment')); // bool

// Check if the request came from a Hotwire Native client $request->wasFromHotwireNative(); // bool

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Response Helpers

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// Return a fluent Turbo Stream builder return turbo_stream()->append('posts', view('posts._post', ['post' => $post]));

// Return multiple streams return turbo_stream([ turbo_stream()->append('posts', view('posts._post', ['post' => $post])), turbo_stream()->update('post_count', view('posts._count', ['count' => $count])), ]);

// Return a Turbo Stream view (renders a Blade view with the Turbo Stream content type) return turbo_stream_view('posts.turbo.created', ['post' => $post]);

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Form Handling

Laravel resource conventions auto-redirect on validation errors:

• *.store → *.create, *.update → *.edit, *.destroy → *.delete

Performance & UX

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• Preserve elements during navigation: <div id="flash" data-turbo-permanent>...</div>
• Disable preloading on specific links: <a data-turbo-preload="false">...</a>
• Disable Turbo on specific elements: <a data-turbo="false">...</a>
• Re-enable Turbo within a disabled container: <a data-turbo="true">...</a>

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