Improving Search Parameter Handling for Loaders

[milamer]

Problem

The current system for handling search parameters in Remix is not as efficient as it could be. This leads to unnecessary refetches of loaders that do not access search parameters, causing stale data and decreased performance.

Goal

The goal of this feature request is to optimize the handling of search parameters, so that only loaders that need specific search parameters are reloaded, thus increasing performance. It is also important to avoid stale data!

Idea

The idea behind this feature request is to give developers more control over the search parameters used by each loader. This can be achieved by allowing developers to specify which search parameters are needed by each loader. Then, the search parameters will be passed as an argument in the loader/action args to force the user to define the needed search params and prevent stale state.

Implementation

One possible solution would be to export the needed search params from the module.

export const searchParams = ['location']

export function loader({searchParams}: LoaderArgs) {
  const location = searchParams.get('location')
}

To match dynamic search params a glob pattern would be suitable (e.g. ['location-*-id']).

export const searchParams = ['location-*-id']

export function loader({searchParams}: LoaderArgs) {
  const location = searchParams.get('location-6-id')
}

For Remix v1 the default should be ['*'] to match all search params, but for v2 an empty array to match no search params could be added.