Appendix

Breaking changes

While Svelte 5 is a complete rewrite, we have done our best to ensure that most codebases can upgrade with a minimum of hassle. That said, there are a few small breaking changes which may require action on your part. They are listed here.

Components are no longer classespermalink

In Svelte 3 and 4, components are classes. In Svelte 5 they are functions and should be instantiated differently. If you need to manually instantiate components, you should use mount or hydrate (imported from svelte) instead. If you see this error using SvelteKit, try updating to the latest version of SvelteKit first, which adds support for Svelte 5. If you're using Svelte without SvelteKit, you'll likely have a main.js file (or similar) which you need to adjust:

 import { mount } from 'svelte';
import App from './App.svelte'

 const app = new App({ target: document.getElementById("app") });
 const app = mount(App, { target: document.getElementById("app") });

export default app;

mount and hydrate have the exact same API. The difference is that hydrate will pick up the Svelte's server-rendered HTML inside its target and hydrate it. Both return an object with the exports of the component and potentially property accessors (if compiled with accessors: true). They do not come with the $on, $set and $destroy methods you may know from the class component API. These are its replacements:

For $on, instead of listening to events, pass them via the events property on the options argument.

 import { mount } from 'svelte';
import App from './App.svelte'

 const app = new App({ target: document.getElementById("app") });
 app.$on('event', callback);
 const app = mount(App, { target: document.getElementById("app"), events: { event: callback } });

Note that using events is discouraged — instead, use callbacks

For $set, use $state instead to create a reactive property object and manipulate it. If you're doing this inside a .js or .ts file, adjust the ending to include .svelte, i.e. .svelte.js or .svelte.ts.

 import { mount } from 'svelte';
import App from './App.svelte'

 const app = new App({ target: document.getElementById("app"), props: { foo: 'bar' } });
 app.$set('event', { foo: 'baz' });
 const props = $state({ foo: 'bar' });
 const app = mount(App, { target: document.getElementById("app"), props });
 props.foo = 'baz';

For $destroy, use unmount instead.

 import { mount, unmount } from 'svelte';
import App from './App.svelte'

 const app = new App({ target: document.getElementById("app"), props: { foo: 'bar' } });
 app.$destroy();
 const app = mount(App, { target: document.getElementById("app") });
 unmount(app);

As a stop-gap-solution, you can also use createClassComponent or asClassComponent (imported from svelte/legacy) instead to keep the same API known from Svelte 4 after instantiating.

 import { createClassComponent } from 'svelte/legacy';
import App from './App.svelte'

 const app = new App({ target: document.getElementById("app") });
 const app = createClassComponent({ component: App, target: document.getElementById("app") });

export default app;

If this component is not under your control, you can use the compatibility.componentApi compiler option for auto-applied backwards compatibility, which means code using new Component(...) keeps working without adjustments (note that this adds a bit of overhead to each component). This will also add $set and $on methods for all component instances you get through bind:this.

ts
/// svelte.config.js
export default {
	compilerOptions: {
		compatibility: {
			componentApi: 4
		}
	}
};

Note that mount and hydrate are not synchronous, so things like onMount won't have been called by the time the function returns and the pending block of promises will not have been rendered yet (because #await waits a microtask to wait for a potentially immediately-resolved promise). If you need that guarantee, call flushSync (import from 'svelte') after calling mount/hydrate.

Server API changespermalink

Similarly, components no longer have a render method when compiled for server side rendering. Instead, pass the function to render from svelte/server:

 import { render } from 'svelte/server';
import App from './App.svelte';

 const { html, head } = App.render({ message: 'hello' });
 const { html, head } = render(App, { props: { message: 'hello' } });

In Svelte 4, rendering a component to a string also returned the CSS of all components. In Svelte 5, this is no longer the case by default because most of the time you're using a tooling chain that takes care of it in other ways (like SvelteKit). If you need CSS to be returned from render, you can set the css compiler option to 'injected' and it will add <style> elements to the head.

Component typing changespermalink

The change from classes towards functions is also reflected in the typings: SvelteComponent, the base class from Svelte 4, is deprecated in favour of the new Component type which defines the function shape of a Svelte component. To manually define a component shape in a d.ts file:

ts
import type { Component } from 'svelte';
export declare const MyComponent: Component<{
	foo: string;
}>;

To declare that a component of a certain type is required:

<script lang="ts">
	import type { Component } from 'svelte';
	import {
		ComponentA,
		ComponentB
	} from 'component-library';

	let component: Component<{ foo: string }> = $state(
		Math.random() ? ComponentA : ComponentB
	);
</script>

<svelte:component this={component} foo="bar" />

The two utility types ComponentEvents and ComponentType are also deprecated. ComponentEvents is obsolete because events are defined as callback props now, and ComponentType is obsolete because the new Component type is the component type already (e.g. ComponentType<SvelteComponent<{ prop: string }>> == Component<{ prop: string }>).

bind:this changespermalink

Because components are no longer classes, using bind:this no longer returns a class instance with $set, $on and $destroy methods on it. It only returns the instance exports (export function/const) and, if you're using the accessors option, a getter/setter-pair for each property.

Whitespace handling changedpermalink

Previously, Svelte employed a very complicated algorithm to determine if whitespace should be kept or not. Svelte 5 simplifies this which makes it easier to reason about as a developer. The rules are:

Whitespace between nodes is collapsed to one whitespace
Whitespace at the start and end of a tag is removed completely
Certain exceptions apply such as keeping whitespace inside pre tags

As before, you can disable whitespace trimming by setting the preserveWhitespace option in your compiler settings or on a per-component basis in <svelte:options>.

Modern browser requiredpermalink

Svelte 5 requires a modern browser (in other words, not Internet Explorer) for various reasons:

it uses Proxies
elements with clientWidth/clientHeight/offsetWidth/offsetHeight bindings use a ResizeObserver rather than a convoluted <iframe> hack
<input type="range" bind:value={...} /> only uses an input event listener, rather than also listening for change events as a fallback

The legacy compiler option, which generated bulkier but IE-friendly code, no longer exists.

Changes to compiler optionspermalink

The false/true (already deprecated previously) and the "none" values were removed as valid values from the css option
The legacy option was repurposed
The hydratable option has been removed. Svelte components are always hydratable now
The enableSourcemap option has been removed. Source maps are always generated now, tooling can choose to ignore it
The tag option was removed. Use <svelte:options customElement="tag-name" /> inside the component instead
The loopGuardTimeout, format, sveltePath, errorMode and varsReport options were removed

The children prop is reservedpermalink

Content inside component tags becomes a snippet prop called children. You cannot have a separate prop by that name.

Dot notation indicates a componentpermalink

In Svelte 4, <foo.bar> would create an element with a tag name of "foo.bar". In Svelte 5, foo.bar is treated as a component instead. This is particularly useful inside each blocks:

{#each items as item}
	<item.component {...item.props} />
{/each}

Breaking changes in runes modepermalink

Some breaking changes only apply once your component is in runes mode.

Bindings to component exports are not allowedpermalink

Exports from runes mode components cannot be bound to directly. For example, having export const foo = ... in component A and then doing <A bind:foo /> causes an error. Use bind:this instead — <A bind:this={a} /> — and access the export as a.foo. This change makes things easier to reason about, as it enforces a clear separation between props and exports.

Bindings need to be explicitly defined using $bindable()permalink

In Svelte 4 syntax, every property (declared via export let) is bindable, meaning you can bind: to it. In runes mode, properties are not bindable by default: you need to denote bindable props with the $bindable rune.

If a bindable property has a default value (e.g. let { foo = $bindable('bar') } = $props();), you need to pass a non-undefined value to that property if you're binding to it. This prevents ambiguous behavior — the parent and child must have the same value — and results in better performance (in Svelte 4, the default value was reflected back to the parent, resulting in wasteful additional render cycles).

accessors option is ignoredpermalink

Setting the accessors option to true makes properties of a component directly accessible on the component instance. In runes mode, properties are never accessible on the component instance. You can use component exports instead if you need to expose them.

immutable option is ignoredpermalink

Setting the immutable option has no effect in runes mode. This concept is replaced by how $state and its variations work.

Classes are no longer "auto-reactive"permalink

In Svelte 4, doing the following triggered reactivity:

<script>
	let foo = new Foo();
</script>

<button on:click={() => (foo.value = 1)}>{foo.value}</button
>

This is because the Svelte compiler treated the assignment to foo.value as an instruction to update anything that referenced foo. In Svelte 5, reactivity is determined at runtime rather than compile time, so you should define value as a reactive $state field on the Foo class. Wrapping new Foo() with $state(...) will have no effect — only vanilla objects and arrays are made deeply reactive.

<svelte:component> is no longer necessarypermalink

In Svelte 4, components are static — if you render <Thing>, and the value of Thing changes, nothing happens. To make it dynamic you must use <svelte:component>.

This is no longer true in Svelte 5:

<script>
	import A from './A.svelte';
	import B from './B.svelte';

	let Thing = $state();
</script>

<select bind:value={Thing}>
	<option value={A}>A</option>
	<option value={B}>B</option>
</select>

<!-- these are equivalent -->
<Thing />
<svelte:component this={Thing} />

Touch and wheel events are passivepermalink

When using onwheel, onmousewheel, ontouchstart and ontouchmove event attributes, the handlers are passive to align with browser defaults. This greatly improves responsiveness by allowing the browser to scroll the document immediately, rather than waiting to see if the event handler calls event.preventDefault().

In the very rare cases that you need to prevent these event defaults, you should use on instead (for example inside an action).

Attribute/prop syntax is stricterpermalink

In Svelte 4, complex attribute values needn't be quoted:

<Component prop=this{is}valid />

This is a footgun. In runes mode, if you want to concatenate stuff you must wrap the value in quotes:

<Component prop="this{is}valid" />

Note that Svelte 5 will also warn if you have a single expression wrapped in quotes, like answer="{42}" — in Svelte 6, that will cause the value to be converted to a string, rather than passed as a number.

HTML structure is stricterpermalink

In Svelte 4, you were allowed to write HTML code that would be repaired by the browser when server side rendering it. For example you could write this...

<table>
	<tr>
		<td>hi</td>
	</tr>
</table>

... and the browser would auto-insert a <tbody> element:

<table>
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<td>hi</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

Svelte 5 is more strict about the HTML structure and will throw a compiler error in cases where the browser would repair the DOM.

Other breaking changespermalink

Stricter @const assignment validationpermalink

Assignments to destructured parts of a @const declaration are no longer allowed. It was an oversight that this was ever allowed.

:is(...), :where(...) and :has(...) are scopedpermalink

Previously, Svelte did not analyse selectors inside :is(...), :where(...) and :has(...), effectively treating them as global. Svelte 5 analyses them in the context of the current component. As such, some selectors may now be treated as unused if they were relying on this treatment. To fix this, use :global(...) inside the :is(...)/:where(...)/:has(...) selectors.

When using Tailwind's @apply directive, add a :global selector to preserve rules that use Tailwind-generated :is(...) selectors:

 main {
 main :global {
	@apply bg-blue-100 dark:bg-blue-900
}

CSS hash position no longer deterministicpermalink

Previously Svelte would always insert the CSS hash last. This is no longer guaranteed in Svelte 5. This is only breaking if you have very weird css selectors.

Scoped CSS uses :where(...)permalink

To avoid issues caused by unpredictable specificity changes, scoped CSS selectors now use :where(.svelte-xyz123) selector modifiers alongside .svelte-xyz123 (where xyz123 is, as previously, a hash of the <style> contents). You can read more detail here.

In the event that you need to support ancient browsers that don't implement :where, you can manually alter the emitted CSS, at the cost of unpredictable specificity changes:

ts
css = css.replace(/:where\((.+?)\)/, '$1');

Error/warning codes have been renamedpermalink

Error and warning codes have been renamed. Previously they used dashes to separate the words, they now use underscores (e.g. foo-bar becomes foo_bar). Additionally, a handful of codes have been reworded slightly.

Reduced number of namespacespermalink

The number of valid namespaces you can pass to the compiler option namespace has been reduced to html (the default), mathml and svg.

The foreign namespace was only useful for Svelte Native, which we're planning to support differently in a 5.x minor.

beforeUpdate/afterUpdate changespermalink

beforeUpdate no longer runs twice on initial render if it modifies a variable referenced in the template.

afterUpdate callbacks in a parent component will now run after afterUpdate callbacks in any child components.

Both functions are disallowed in runes mode — use $effect.pre(...) and $effect(...) instead.

contenteditable behavior changepermalink

If you have a contenteditable node with a corresponding binding and a reactive value inside it (example: <div contenteditable=true bind:textContent>count is {count}</div>), then the value inside the contenteditable will not be updated by updates to count because the binding takes full control over the content immediately and it should only be updated through it.

oneventname attributes no longer accept string valuespermalink

In Svelte 4, it was possible to specify event attributes on HTML elements as a string:

<button onclick="alert('hello')">...</button>

This is not recommended, and is no longer possible in Svelte 5, where properties like onclick replace on:click as the mechanism for adding event handlers.

null and undefined become the empty stringpermalink

In Svelte 4, null and undefined were printed as the corresponding string. In 99 out of 100 cases you want this to become the empty string instead, which is also what most other frameworks out there do. Therefore, in Svelte 5, null and undefined become the empty string.

bind:files values can only be null, undefined or FileListpermalink

bind:files is now a two-way binding. As such, when setting a value, it needs to be either falsy (null or undefined) or of type FileList.

Bindings now react to form resetspermalink

Previously, bindings did not take into account reset event of forms, and therefore values could get out of sync with the DOM. Svelte 5 fixes this by placing a reset listener on the document and invoking bindings where necessary.

walk not longer exportedpermalink

svelte/compiler reexported walk from estree-walker for convenience. This is no longer true in Svelte 5, import it directly from that package instead in case you need it.

Content inside svelte:options is forbiddenpermalink

In Svelte 4 you could have content inside a <svelte:options /> tag. It was ignored, but you could write something in there. In Svelte 5, content inside that tag is a compiler error.

<slot> elements in declarative shadow roots are preservedpermalink

Svelte 4 replaced the <slot /> tag in all places with its own version of slots. Svelte 5 preserves them in the case they are a child of a <template shadowrootmode="..."> element.

<svelte:element> tag must be an expressionpermalink

In Svelte 4, <svelte:element this="div"> is valid code. This makes little sense — you should just do <div>. In the vanishingly rare case that you do need to use a literal value for some reason, you can do this:

 <svelte:element this="div">
 <svelte:element this={"div"}>

Note that whereas Svelte 4 would treat <svelte:element this="input"> (for example) identically to <input> for the purposes of determining which bind: directives could be applied, Svelte 5 does not.

mount plays transitions by defaultpermalink

The mount function used to render a component tree plays transitions by default unless the intro option is set to false. This is different from legacy class components which, when manually instantiated, didn't play transitions by default.

<img src={...}> and {@html ...} hydration mismatches are not repairedpermalink

In Svelte 4, if the value of a src attribute or {@html ...} tag differ between server and client (a.k.a. a hydration mismatch), the mismatch is repaired. This is very costly: setting a src attribute (even if it evaluates to the same thing) causes images and iframes to be reloaded, and reinserting a large blob of HTML is slow.

Since these mismatches are extremely rare, Svelte 5 assumes that the values are unchanged, but in development will warn you if they are not. To force an update you can do something like this:

<script>
	let { markup, src } = $props();

	if (typeof window !== 'undefined') {
		// stash the values...
		const initial = { markup, src };

		// unset them...
		markup = src = undefined;

		$effect(() => {
			// ...and reset after we've mounted
			markup = initial.markup;
			src = initial.src;
		});
	}
</script>

{@html markup}
<img {src} />

Hydration works differentlypermalink

Svelte 5 makes use of comments during server side rendering which are used for more robust and efficient hydration on the client. As such, you shouldn't remove comments from your HTML output if you intend to hydrate it, and if you manually authored HTML to be hydrated by a Svelte component, you need to adjust that HTML to include said comments at the correct positions.

onevent attributes are delegatedpermalink

Event attributes replace event directives: Instead of on:click={handler} you write onclick={handler}. For backwards compatibility the on:event syntax is still supported and behaves the same as in Svelte 4. Some of the onevent attributes however are delegated, which means you need to take care to not stop event propagation on those manually, as they then might never reach the listener for this event type at the root.

--style-props uses a different elementpermalink

Svelte 5 uses an extra <svelte-css-wrapper> element instead of a <div> to wrap the component when using CSS custom properties.

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