Connected forms

Connected Forms are bound to a model in your app's data schema. Whenever a connected form is submitted, a record is automatically created or updated in the bound data model, with some or all of the form's input fields mapping to fields in the data model. Connected forms automatically work with any Amplify GraphQL API, and no onSubmit handling is required.

Generate forms

First, install the Amplify UI library.

npm add @aws-amplify/ui-react

To use connected forms, you first need to deploy a data model from your sandbox environment. We will use the same example as in the getting started tutorial. To get started run the following command from your project root:

npx ampx generate forms

This will generate create and update forms for each model defined in your schema in a folder called ui-components.

File written: ui-components/graphql/subscriptions.ts
File written: ui-components/graphql/mutations.ts
File written: ui-components/graphql/queries.ts
File written: ui-components/TodoCreateForm.jsx
File written: ui-components/TodoCreateForm.d.ts
File written: ui-components/TodoUpdateForm.jsx
File written: ui-components/TodoUpdateForm.d.ts
File written: ui-components/utils.js
File written: ui-components/index.js

Re-generating forms

In Gen 2, we automatically generate the form UI for you, which you can then customize and manage. If you decide to update your data model and need to regenerate the forms, please ensure you back up the original ui-components folder before executing the npx ampx generate forms command again.

Render React form in your app

1. In your application's entrypoint file (e.g. src/index.js for create-react-app or src/main.jsx for Vite), add the following imports and configuration

Copy highlighted code example
import '@aws-amplify/ui-react/styles.css';
import { ThemeProvider } from '@aws-amplify/ui-react';
import { Amplify } from 'aws-amplify';

import outputs from './amplify_outputs.json';

Amplify.configure(outputs);

2. In your application's entrypoint file (e.g. src/main.jsx for Vite), wrap the <App /> component with the following:

<ThemeProvider>
  <App />
</ThemeProvider>

3. Import your form by name. For a form named TodoCreateForm, you would use the following code:

import { TodoCreateForm } from './ui-components';

4. Place your form in code. For a form named ProductCreateForm in a React project, you could use the following App code:

function App() {
  return <TodoCreateForm />;
}

export default App;

Types of forms

All connected and unconnected forms are either a Create form or an Update form.

Create forms

Create forms render a form with empty inputs. If a create form is connected to a data model, will always generate a new record upon submission.

Update forms

Update forms expect an input value in order to pre-populate the form.

For update forms that are connected to a data model, you can use the id prop, or the model prop:

• id prop: id string of the record you want to update. For example:

<AuthorUpdateForm id="ac74af5c-3aab-4274-8f41-23e1e6576af5" />

• Model prop: if your form is bound to a data model named Author, your form will have a prop named author as well, which can receive a record. For example:

<AuthorUpdateForm author={authorRecord}>