Server Actions

Makerkit makes extensive use of Next.js Server Actions to mutate data in your Supabase database.

Server Actions are a powerful feature of Next.js that allow you to write server-side code that we can call from the client-side. This is useful for a number of reasons:

1. We don't need to write any API routes to handle our server-side logic
2. We can tell Next.js to revalidate our data after a server action has been called, thus refreshing our data on the client-side
3. We can easily call them just like any other function in our code

Creating a Server Action

To create a server action, we need to create a separate file marked with the use server directive at the top of the file. This tells Next.js that this file contains a server action that we can call from the client-side.

'use server';
 
export async function handleFormSubmit(
  formData: FormData
) {
  // Do something with the form data
}

Calling a Server Action

Calling a server action can be done in several ways

1. Calling it from a form submit handler
2. Calling it from a button click handler
3. Calling it imperatively as a function

Calling it from a form submit handler

Let's assume we defined our server actions in a file called actions.ts:

'use server';
 
export async function createPostAction(
  formData: FormData
) {
  // Do something with the form data
}

We can call this server action from a form submit handler like so:

<form action={createPostAction}>
  <div className='flex flex-col space-y-4'>
    <h2 className='text-lg font-semibold'>Create a new Post</h2>
 
    <Label className='flex flex-col space-y-1.5'>
      <span>Title</span>
      <Input name='title' placeholder='Ex. The best Next.js libraries' required />
    </Label>
 
    <Label className='flex flex-col space-y-1.5'>
      <span>Description</span>
      <Input />
    </Label>
 
    <SubmitButton />
  </div>
</form>

Calling it from a button click handler

We can also call a server action from a button click handler:

<form action={createPostAction}>
  <div className='flex flex-col space-y-4'>
    <h2 className='text-lg font-semibold'>Create a new Post</h2>
 
    <Label className='flex flex-col space-y-1.5'>
      <span>Title</span>
      <Input name='title' placeholder='Ex. The best Next.js libraries' required />
    </Label>
 
    <Label className='flex flex-col space-y-1.5'>
      <span>Description</span>
      <Input />
    </Label>
 
    <button formAction={createPostAction}>Click</button>
  </div>
</form>

Calling it imperatively as a function

Finally, we can call a server action imperatively as a function using startTransition:

import { useTransition } from "react";
 
function ClientComponent({ id }) {
  let [isPending, startTransition] = useTransition();
 
  return (
    <button onClick={() => startTransition(() => createPostAction(id))}>
      Save
    </button>
  );
}

Send CSRF token with server actions

Remember: Makerkit protects by default every POST request with a CSRF token. This is a security measure to prevent CSRF attacks.

It's your job to send this along when you call a server action.