actions

Storybook Addon Actions

Storybook Addon Actions can be used to display data received by event handlers in Storybook.

Framework Support

Getting Started

Install:

npm i -D @storybook/addon-actions

Then, add following content to .storybook/main.js

module.exports = {
  addons: ['@storybook/addon-actions'],
};

Actions args

Starting in SB6.0, we recommend using story parameters to specify actions which get passed into your story as Args (passed as the first argument when passArgsFirst is set to true).

The first option is to specify argTypes for your story with an action field. Take the following example:

import Button from './button';

export default {
  title: 'Button',
  argTypes: { onClick: { action: 'clicked' } },
};

export const Basic = ({ onClick }) => <Button onClick={onClick}>Hello World!</Button>;

Alternatively, suppose you have a naming convention, like onX for event handlers. The following configuration automatically creates actions for each onX argType (which you can either specify manually or generate automatically using Storybook Docs.

import Button from './button';

export default {
  title: 'Button',
  component: Button,
  parameters: { actions: { argTypesRegex: '^on.*' } },
};

export const Basic = ({ onClick }) => <Button onClick={onClick}>Hello World!</Button>;

NOTE: If you're generating argTypes in using another addon (like Docs, which is the common behavior) you'll need to make sure that the actions addon loads AFTER the other addon. You can do this by listing it later in the addons registration code in .storybook/main.js.

Manually-specified actions

Import the action function and use it to create actions handlers. When creating action handlers, provide a name to make it easier to identify.

Note: Make sure NOT to use reserved words as function names. issues#29

import { action } from '@storybook/addon-actions';
import Button from './button';

export default {
  title: 'Button',
  component: Button,
};

export const defaultView = () => <Button onClick={action('button-click')}>Hello World!</Button>;

Multiple actions

If your story requires multiple actions, it may be convenient to use actions to create many at once:

import { actions } from '@storybook/addon-actions';
import Button from './button';

export default {
  title: 'Button',
  component: Button,
};

// This will lead to { onClick: action('onClick'), ... }
const eventsFromNames = actions('onClick', 'onMouseOver');

// This will lead to { onClick: action('clicked'), ... }
const eventsFromObject = actions({ onClick: 'clicked', onMouseOver: 'hovered' });

export const first = () => <Button {...eventsFromNames}>Hello World!</Button>;

export const second = () => <Button {...eventsFromObject}>Hello World!</Button>;

Action Decorators

If you wish to process action data before sending them over to the logger, you can do it with action decorators.

decorate takes an array of decorator functions. Each decorator function is passed an array of arguments, and should return a new arguments array to use. decorate returns a object with two functions: action and actions, that act like the above, except they log the modified arguments instead of the original arguments.

import { decorate } from '@storybook/addon-actions';
import Button from './button';

export default {
  title: 'Button',
  component: Button,
};

const firstArg = decorate([args => args.slice(0, 1)]);

export const first = () => <Button onClick={firstArg.action('button-click')}>Hello World!</Button>;

Configuration

Arguments which are passed to the action call will have to be serialized while be "transferred" over the channel.

This is not very optimal and can cause lag when large objects are being logged, for this reason it is possible to configure a maximum depth.

The action logger, by default, will log all actions fired during the lifetime of the story. After a while this can make the storybook laggy. As a workaround, you can configure an upper limit to how many actions should be logged.

To apply the configuration globally use the configureActions function in your preview.js file.

import { configureActions } from '@storybook/addon-actions';

configureActions({
  depth: 100,
  // Limit the number of items logged into the actions panel
  limit: 20,
});

To apply the configuration per action use:

action('my-action', {
  depth: 5,
});

Available Options

Name	Type	Description	Default
depth	Number	Configures the transferred depth of any logged objects.	10
clearOnStoryChange	Boolean	Flag whether to clear the action logger when switching away from the current story.	true
limit	Number	Limits the number of items logged in the action logger	50

withActions decorator

You can define action handles in a declarative way using withActions decorators. It accepts the same arguments as actions. Keys have '<eventName> <selector>' format, e.g. 'click .btn'. Selector is optional. This can be used with any framework but is especially useful for @storybook/html.

import { withActions } from '@storybook/addon-actions';
import Button from './button';

export default {
  title: 'Button',
  decorators: [withActions('mouseover', 'click .btn')],
};

export const first = () => <Button className="btn">Hello World!</Button>;