Virtual File Routes

We'd like to thank the Remix team for pioneering the concept of virtual file routes. We've taken inspiration from their work and adapted it to work with TanStack Router's existing file-based route-tree generation.

Virtual file routes are a powerful concept that allows you to build a route tree programmatically using code that references real files in your project. This can be useful if:

You have an existing route organization that you want to keep.
You want to customize the location of your route files.
You want to completely override TanStack Router's file-based route generation and build your own convention.

Here's a quick example of using virtual file routes to map a route tree to a set of real files in your project:

tsx

// routes.ts
import {
  rootRoute,
  route,
  index,
  layout,
  physical,
} from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

export const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [
  index('index.tsx'),
  layout('layout.tsx', [
    route('/dashboard', 'app/dashboard.tsx', [
      index('app/dashboard-index.tsx'),
      route('/invoices', 'app/dashboard-invoices.tsx', [
        index('app/invoices-index.tsx'),
        route('$id', 'app/invoice-detail.tsx'),
      ]),
    ]),
    physical('/posts', 'posts'),
  ]),
])

// routes.ts
import {
  rootRoute,
  route,
  index,
  layout,
  physical,
} from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

export const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [
  index('index.tsx'),
  layout('layout.tsx', [
    route('/dashboard', 'app/dashboard.tsx', [
      index('app/dashboard-index.tsx'),
      route('/invoices', 'app/dashboard-invoices.tsx', [
        index('app/invoices-index.tsx'),
        route('$id', 'app/invoice-detail.tsx'),
      ]),
    ]),
    physical('/posts', 'posts'),
  ]),
])

Configuration

Virtual file routes can be configured either via:

The TanStackRouter plugin for Vite/Rspack/Webpack
The tsr.config.json file for the TanStack Router CLI

Configuration via the TanStackRouter Plugin

If you're using the TanStackRouter plugin for Vite/Rspack/Webpack, you can configure virtual file routes by passing the path of your routes file to the virtualRoutesConfig option when setting up the plugin:

tsx

// vite.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from 'vite'
import react from '@vitejs/plugin-react'
import { TanStackRouterVite } from '@tanstack/router-plugin/vite'

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [
    TanStackRouterVite({
      virtualRouteConfig: './routes.ts',
    }),
    react(),
  ],
})

// vite.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from 'vite'
import react from '@vitejs/plugin-react'
import { TanStackRouterVite } from '@tanstack/router-plugin/vite'

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [
    TanStackRouterVite({
      virtualRouteConfig: './routes.ts',
    }),
    react(),
  ],
})

Or, you choose to define the virtual routes directly in the configuration:

tsx

// vite.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from 'vite'
import react from '@vitejs/plugin-react'
import { TanStackRouterVite } from '@tanstack/router-plugin/vite'
import { rootRoute } from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [
  // ... the rest of your virtual route tree
])

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [TanStackRouterVite({ virtualRouteConfig: routes }), react()],
})

// vite.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from 'vite'
import react from '@vitejs/plugin-react'
import { TanStackRouterVite } from '@tanstack/router-plugin/vite'
import { rootRoute } from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [
  // ... the rest of your virtual route tree
])

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [TanStackRouterVite({ virtualRouteConfig: routes }), react()],
})

Creating Virtual File Routes

To create virtual file routes, you'll need to import the @tanstack/virtual-file-routes package. This package provides a set of functions that allow you to create virtual routes that reference real files in your project. A few utility functions are exported from the package:

rootRoute - Creates a virtual root route.
route - Creates a virtual route.
index - Creates a virtual index route.
layout - Creates a virtual layout route.
physical - Creates a physical virtual route (more on this later).

Virtual Root Route

The rootRoute function is used to create a virtual root route. It takes a file name and an array of children routes. Here's an example of a virtual root route:

tsx

// routes.ts
import { rootRoute } from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

export const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [
  // ... children routes
])

// routes.ts
import { rootRoute } from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

export const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [
  // ... children routes
])

Virtual Route

The route function is used to create a virtual route. It takes a path, a file name, and an array of children routes. Here's an example of a virtual route:

tsx

// routes.ts
import { route } from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

export const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [
  route('/about', 'about.tsx', [
    // ... children routes
  ]),
])

// routes.ts
import { route } from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

export const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [
  route('/about', 'about.tsx', [
    // ... children routes
  ]),
])

You can also define a virtual route without a file name. This allows to set a common path prefix for its children:

tsx

// routes.ts
import { route } from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

export const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [
  route('/hello', [
    route('/world', 'world.tsx'), // full path will be "/hello/world"
    route('/universe', 'universe.tsx'), // full path will be "/hello/universe"
  ]),
])

// routes.ts
import { route } from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

export const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [
  route('/hello', [
    route('/world', 'world.tsx'), // full path will be "/hello/world"
    route('/universe', 'universe.tsx'), // full path will be "/hello/universe"
  ]),
])

Virtual Index Route

The index function is used to create a virtual index route. It takes a file name. Here's an example of a virtual index route:

tsx

import { index } from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [index('index.tsx')])

import { index } from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [index('index.tsx')])

Virtual Layout Route

The layout function is used to create a virtual layout route. It takes a file name, an array of children routes, and an optional layout ID. Here's an example of a virtual layout route:

tsx

// routes.ts
import { layout } from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

export const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [
  layout('layout.tsx', [
    // ... children routes
  ]),
])

// routes.ts
import { layout } from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

export const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [
  layout('layout.tsx', [
    // ... children routes
  ]),
])

You can also specify a layout ID to give the layout a unique identifier that is different from the filename:

tsx

// routes.ts
import { layout } from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

export const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [
  layout('my-layout-id', 'layout.tsx', [
    // ... children routes
  ]),
])

// routes.ts
import { layout } from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

export const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [
  layout('my-layout-id', 'layout.tsx', [
    // ... children routes
  ]),
])

Physical Virtual Routes

Physical virtual routes are a way to "mount" a directory of good ol' TanStack Router File Based routing convention under a specific URL path. This can be useful if you are using virtual routes to customize a small portion of your route tree high up in the hierarchy, but want to use the standard file-based routing convention for sub-routes and directories.

Consider the following file structure:

/routes
├── root.tsx
├── index.tsx
├── layout.tsx
├── app
│   ├── dashboard.tsx
│   ├── dashboard-index.tsx
│   ├── dashboard-invoices.tsx
│   ├── invoices-index.tsx
│   ├── invoice-detail.tsx
└── posts
    ├── index.tsx
    ├── $postId.tsx
    ├── $postId.edit.tsx
    ├── comments/
    │   ├── index.tsx
    │   ├── $commentId.tsx
    └── likes/
        ├── index.tsx
        ├── $likeId.tsx

/routes
├── root.tsx
├── index.tsx
├── layout.tsx
├── app
│   ├── dashboard.tsx
│   ├── dashboard-index.tsx
│   ├── dashboard-invoices.tsx
│   ├── invoices-index.tsx
│   ├── invoice-detail.tsx
└── posts
    ├── index.tsx
    ├── $postId.tsx
    ├── $postId.edit.tsx
    ├── comments/
    │   ├── index.tsx
    │   ├── $commentId.tsx
    └── likes/
        ├── index.tsx
        ├── $likeId.tsx

Let's use virtual routes to customize our route tree for everything but posts, then use physical virtual routes to mount the posts directory under the /posts path:

tsx

// routes.ts
export const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [
  // Set up your virtual routes as normal
  index('index.tsx'),
  layout('layout.tsx', [
    route('/dashboard', 'app/dashboard.tsx', [
      index('app/dashboard-index.tsx'),
      route('/invoices', 'app/dashboard-invoices.tsx', [
        index('app/invoices-index.tsx'),
        route('$id', 'app/invoice-detail.tsx'),
      ]),
    ]),
    // Mount the `posts` directory under the `/posts` path
    physical('/posts', 'posts'),
  ]),
])

// routes.ts
export const routes = rootRoute('root.tsx', [
  // Set up your virtual routes as normal
  index('index.tsx'),
  layout('layout.tsx', [
    route('/dashboard', 'app/dashboard.tsx', [
      index('app/dashboard-index.tsx'),
      route('/invoices', 'app/dashboard-invoices.tsx', [
        index('app/invoices-index.tsx'),
        route('$id', 'app/invoice-detail.tsx'),
      ]),
    ]),
    // Mount the `posts` directory under the `/posts` path
    physical('/posts', 'posts'),
  ]),
])

Virtual Routes inside of TanStack Router File Based routing

The previous section showed you how you can use TanStack Router's File Based routing convention inside of a virtual route configuration. However, the opposite is possible as well.
You can configure the main part of your app's route tree using TanStack Router's File Based routing convention and opt into virtual route configuration for specific subtrees.

Consider the following file structure:

/routes
├── __root.tsx
├── foo
│   ├── bar
│   │   ├── __virtual.ts
│   │   ├── details.tsx
│   │   ├── home.tsx
│   │   └── route.ts
│   └── bar.tsx
└── index.tsx

/routes
├── __root.tsx
├── foo
│   ├── bar
│   │   ├── __virtual.ts
│   │   ├── details.tsx
│   │   ├── home.tsx
│   │   └── route.ts
│   └── bar.tsx
└── index.tsx

Let's look at the bar directory which contains a special file named __virtual.ts. This file instructs the generator to switch over to virtual file route configuration for this directory (and its child directories).

__virtual.ts configures the virtual routes for that particular subtree of the route tree. It uses the same API as explained above, with the only difference being that no rootRoute is defined for that subtree:

tsx

// routes/foo/bar/__virtual.ts
import {
  defineVirtualSubtreeConfig,
  index,
  route,
} from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

export default defineVirtualSubtreeConfig([
  index('home.tsx'),
  route('$id', 'details.tsx'),
])

// routes/foo/bar/__virtual.ts
import {
  defineVirtualSubtreeConfig,
  index,
  route,
} from '@tanstack/virtual-file-routes'

export default defineVirtualSubtreeConfig([
  index('home.tsx'),
  route('$id', 'details.tsx'),
])

The helper function defineVirtualSubtreeConfig is closely modeled after vite's defineConfig and allows you to define a subtree configuration via a default export. The default export can either be

a subtree config object
a function returning a subtree config object
an async function returning a subtree config object

Inception

You can mix and match TanStack Router's File Based routing convention and virtual route configuration however you like.
Let's go deeper!
Check out the following example that starts off using File Based routing convention, switches over to virtual route configuration for /posts, switches back to File Based routing convention for /posts/lets-go only to switch over to virtual route configuration again for /posts/lets-go/deeper.

├── __root.tsx
├── index.tsx
├── posts
│   ├── __virtual.ts
│   ├── details.tsx
│   ├── home.tsx
│   └── lets-go
│       ├── deeper
│       │   ├── __virtual.ts
│       │   └── home.tsx
│       └── index.tsx
└── posts.tsx

├── __root.tsx
├── index.tsx
├── posts
│   ├── __virtual.ts
│   ├── details.tsx
│   ├── home.tsx
│   └── lets-go
│       ├── deeper
│       │   ├── __virtual.ts
│       │   └── home.tsx
│       └── index.tsx
└── posts.tsx

Configuration via the TanStack Router CLI

If you're using the TanStack Router CLI, you can configure virtual file routes by defining the path to your routes file in the tsr.config.json file:

json

// tsr.config.json
{
  "virtualRouteConfig": "./routes.ts"
}

// tsr.config.json
{
  "virtualRouteConfig": "./routes.ts"
}

Or you can define the virtual routes directly in the configuration, while much less common allows you to configure them via the TanStack Router CLI by adding a virtualRouteConfig object to your tsr.config.json file and defining your virtual routes and passing the resulting JSON that is generated by calling the actual rootRoute/route/index/etc functions from the @tanstack/virtual-file-routes package: