react-next-router

A fully automatic, Next.js App Router-style file-based routing solution for React — without using Next.js.

Supports:

• File-based routing
• Nested layouts
• Route grouping
• Dynamic routes
• Error boundary
• 404 page
• Loader support for data fetching

Built for React Router DOM + Vite — simple, fast, familiar.

✨ Features

✅ Next.js App Router-like routing in React apps
✅ Auto-load pages from the /app folder
✅ Support for Layouts via layout.jsx
✅ Route Groups with (group) folders
✅ Dynamic routes with [slug], [...slug], [[slug]]
✅ Error boundaries via error.jsx
✅ 404 Not Found handling with 404.jsx
✅ Loader support for data fetching loader.jsx
✅ Fully type-safe (TypeScript supported)

Live Demo

Try it on StackBlitz:

📦 Install

npm install react-next-router

📂 File Structure Example

src/
 └── app/
      ├── layout.jsx          # Root layout
      ├── page.jsx            # Index route ('/')
      ├── about/
      │    └── page.jsx       # '/about'
      ├── blog/
      │    ├── [slug]/
      │    │     ├── page.jsx   # '/blog/:slug'
      │    │     └── loader.jsx  # Loader for data fetching
      │    └── layout.jsx     # Layout for '/blog/*'
      ├── (admin)/
      │    ├── dashboard/
      │    │      └── page.jsx # '/dashboard'
      │    └── layout.jsx     # Layout for group
      ├── error.jsx           # Error boundary
      ├── 404.jsx             # Not Found page
      ├── loading.jsx         # Loading component (renders while loading)

You can loader.jsx alongside any page.jsx to fetch data before rendering the page.
Add a app/loading.jsx file to show a loading UI while the loader is running.

🚀 Usage

Example src/app/page.jsx:

export default function Home({ data }) {
  return <h1>Home Page {data && <span>{data.message}</span>}</h1>;
}

Example src/app/layout.jsx:

export default function RootLayout({ children }) {
  return (
    <div>
      <header>Header Content</header>
      <main>{children}</main>
    </div>
  );
}

Example src/app/loader.jsx:

// This loader runs before the sibling page.jsx and its return value is passed as the 'data' prop
export default async function loader() {
  // You can fetch from any API or return any data
  const res = await fetch("https://api.example.com/message");
  const data = await res.json();
  return { message: data.message };
}

Example src/App.jsx:

import { AppRouter } from "react-next-router";

function App() {
  return <AppRouter />;
}
export default App;

🔍 Dynamic Routing

| File | URL Pattern | | ----------------------------- | -------------------------------- | | app/page.jsx | / | | app/about/page.jsx | /about | | app/blog/[slug]/page.jsx | /blog/:slug | | app/blog/[...slug]/page.jsx | /blog/* (catch-all) | | app/blog/[[slug]]/page.jsx | /blog (optional param) | | app/blog/[slug]/loader.jsx | Data loader for /blog/:slug | | app/loading.jsx | Loading UI while data is fetched |

🪝 useAppRouter Hook

You can now use the useAppRouter() hook to get a JSON structure of all matched routes. This is useful when you want to inspect or manipulate the route config manually — for example, inside a custom RouterProvider or createBrowserRouter setup.

import { useAppRouter } from "react-next-router";

const MyComponent = () => {
  const router = useAppRouter();
  console.log(router);
  return <div>Check the console for the matched routes!</div>;
};

🪝 useNextParams Hook

The useNextParams hook lets you easily access dynamic route parameters (like [slug], [...slug]) in your components. recommended for use in pages that have dynamic segments instead of using useParams from React Router.

import { useNextParams } from "react-next-router";

export default function BlogPost() {
  const params = useNextParams();
  // For a route like /blog/hello, params.slug === 'hello'
  // For a catch-all route like /blog/a/b, params.slug === ['a', 'b']
  return <div>Slug: {JSON.stringify(params.slug)}</div>;
}

🏗️ Route Grouping (like Next.js (group) folders)

Folders wrapped in parentheses will not affect the URL path:

app/
 ├── (auth)/
 │     └── login/page.jsx  # '/login'
 └── (dashboard)/
       └── home/page.jsx   # '/home'

🧩 Layouts

Every folder can contain its own layout.jsx which wraps all its subroutes:

app/
 ├── layout.jsx        # Root layout
 └── blog/
       ├── layout.jsx  # Blog section layout
       └── [slug]/
             └── page.jsx

❌ 404 Page

Define a 404.jsx file to catch all unmatched routes:

app/
 └── 404.jsx

🛡️ Error Boundaries

Add an error.jsx file to handle route-specific errors:

app/
 └── error.jsx

🛠️ Loaders (Data Fetching)

Add a loader.jsx file alongside any page.jsx to fetch data before rendering the page. The returned value will be passed as the data prop to the sibling page.jsx component.

Example:

app/
 └── about/
       ├── page.jsx
       └── loader.jsx

📝 License

MIT

👏 Credits

Inspired by Next.js App Router and built with React Router DOM + Vite ❤️

🔗 Links

• NPM Package
• GitHub Repo