Features / Hooks

Intercept everything.

Before and after hooks on every operation. Transform data, enforce business rules, trigger side effects with full access to the request context and Direct API.

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Overview

What it does

Nextly's hook system lets you run custom logic before or after any database operation. Hooks are defined directly in your collection configurations using thehooksproperty, or registered globally with the*wildcard.

Before hooks can modify the data being written or throw an error to abort the operation. After hooks are for side effects: send notifications, revalidate caches, or log audit events. Each hook receives a context object with the user, operation type, data, and a reference to the Nextly Direct API for performing additional database operations within the hook.

The hook system supports 8 collection-level hooks that cover every stage of a CRUD lifecycle. Hooks run in registration order, and each before hook receives the data returned by the previous one, enabling a pipeline pattern.

8 Collection Hooks

beforeOperation, beforeValidate, beforeChange, afterChange, beforeRead, afterRead, beforeDelete, afterDelete. Cover every stage of a CRUD operation.

Global Wildcards

Register hooks for all collections with the * wildcard. Perfect for audit logging, rate limiting, or cross-cutting validation.

Data Transformation

Before hooks return modified data that flows through the pipeline. Auto-generate slugs, set audit fields, and normalize values, all before the database write.

Error Control

Throw an error in any hook to abort the operation. Enforce business rules before data touches the database.

Lifecycle

How hooks execute

beforeOperation- global + collection-specific

beforeValidate- create & update only

beforeChange / beforeRead / beforeDelete- modify data or abort

↓

VALIDATION + DATABASE OPERATION

afterChange / afterRead / afterDelete- side effects only

Global hooks (registered with *) execute before collection-specific hooks. Multiple hooks on the same point run in registration order, and each receives the data returned by the previous hook.

Code Example

Real-world patterns

Auto-generate slug from title

Use beforeChange to automatically create a URL-friendly slug whenever a post is created or its title changes.

collections/posts.ts

import { defineCollection, text, richText } from"@revnixhq/nextly/config";

export default defineCollection({
 slug:"posts",
 fields: [
  text({ name:"title", required: true }),
  text({ name:"slug", unique: true }),
  richText({ name:"content" }),
 ],
 hooks: {
  beforeChange: [
   async ({ data, operation }) => {
    if (data?.title && (operation ==="create" || !data.slug)) {
     return {
      ...data,
      slug: data.title.toLowerCase().replace(/\s+/g,"-"),
     };
    }
    return data;
   },
  ],
 },
});

Revalidate cache after changes

Use afterChange to revalidate your Next.js cache whenever content updates, so your frontend always shows fresh data.

collections/posts.ts — afterChange hook

hooks: {
 afterChange: [
  async ({ collection }) => {
   // Revalidate Next.js cache for this collection
   await fetch("/api/revalidate?tag=" + collection, {
    method:"POST",
   });
  },
 ],
},

Prevent deletion of published content

Throw an error in beforeDelete to abort the operation.

collections/posts.ts — beforeDelete hook

hooks: {
 beforeDelete: [
  async ({ data }) => {
   if (data?.status ==="published") {
    throw new Error("Cannot delete published posts. Unpublish first.");
   }
  },
 ],
},

Reference

All hook points

Hook	Timing	Operation	Description
beforeOperation	Before	Any	Runs before any operation. Modify operation arguments. Global hooks run first.
beforeValidate	Before	Create / Update	Runs before validation on create and update. Alias for beforeCreate + beforeUpdate.
beforeChange	Before	Create / Update	Runs before database write on create and update. Return modified data.
afterChange	After	Create / Update	Runs after database write on create and update. Side effects only.
beforeRead	Before	Read	Runs before database query. Modify query parameters.
afterRead	After	Read	Runs after database query. Transform response data.
beforeDelete	Before	Delete	Runs before database delete. Throw to prevent deletion.
afterDelete	After	Delete	Runs after database delete. Cleanup side effects.

Internally, beforeChange maps to bothbeforeCreate andbeforeUpdate in the hook registry. Similarly, afterChange maps toafterCreate andafterUpdate.

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