obsidian/raw/_processed/fields__relationship.md

title	label	order	desc	keywords	source
Relationship Field	Relationship	130	The Relationship field provides the ability to relate documents together. Learn how to use Relationship fields, see examples and options.	relationship, fields, config, configuration, documentation, Content Management System, cms, headless, javascript, node, react, nextjs	https://payloadcms.com/docs/fields/relationship

The Relationship Field is one of the most powerful fields Payload features. It provides the ability to easily relate documents together.

The Relationship field is used in a variety of ways, including:

• To add Product documents to an Order document
• To allow for an Order to feature a placedBy relationship to either an Organization or User collection
• To assign Category documents to Post documents

To add a Relationship Field, set the type to relationship in your Field Config:

import type { Field } from 'payload'

export const MyRelationshipField: Field = {
  // ...
  // highlight-start
  type: 'relationship',
  relationTo: 'products',
  // highlight-end
}

Config Options

Option	Description
name *	To be used as the property name when stored and retrieved from the database. More details.
relationTo *	Provide one or many collection slugs to be able to assign relationships to.
filterOptions	A query to filter which options appear in the UI and validate against. More details.
hasMany	Boolean when, if set to true, allows this field to have many relations instead of only one.
minRows	A number for the fewest allowed items during validation when a value is present. Used with hasMany.
maxRows	A number for the most allowed items during validation when a value is present. Used with hasMany.
maxDepth	Sets a maximum population depth for this field, regardless of the remaining depth when this field is reached. Max Depth
label	Text used as a field label in the Admin Panel or an object with keys for each language.
unique	Enforce that each entry in the Collection has a unique value for this field. This creates a database-level unique index on the field's path. More details.
validate	Provide a custom validation function that will be executed on both the Admin Panel and the backend. More details.
index	Build an index for this field to produce faster queries. Set this field to true if your users will perform queries on this field's data often.
saveToJWT	If this field is top-level and nested in a config supporting Authentication, include its data in the user JWT.
hooks	Provide Field Hooks to control logic for this field. More details.
access	Provide Field Access Control to denote what users can see and do with this field's data. More details.
hidden	Restrict this field's visibility from all APIs entirely. Will still be saved to the database, but will not appear in any API or the Admin Panel.
defaultValue	Provide data to be used for this field's default value. More details.
localized	Enable localization for this field. Requires localization to be enabled in the Base config.
required	Require this field to have a value.
admin	Admin-specific configuration. More details.
custom	Extension point for adding custom data (e.g. for plugins)
typescriptSchema	Override field type generation with providing a JSON schema
virtual	Provide true to disable field in the database, or provide a string path to link the field with a relationship. See Virtual Field Configuration
graphQL	Custom graphQL configuration for the field. More details

* An asterisk denotes that a property is required.

**Tip:** The [Depth](../queries/depth) parameter can be used to automatically populate related documents that are returned by the API.

Admin Options

To the appearance and behavior of the Relationship Field in the Admin Panel, you can use the admin option:

import type { Field } from 'payload'

export const MyRelationshipField: Field = {
  // ...
  admin: {
    // highlight-line
    // ...
  },
}

The Relationship Field inherits all of the default admin options from the base Field Admin Config, plus the following additional options:

Property	Description
isSortable	Set to true if you'd like this field to be sortable within the Admin UI using drag and drop (only works when hasMany is set to true).
allowCreate	Set to false if you'd like to disable the ability to create new documents from within the relationship field.
allowEdit	Set to false if you'd like to disable the ability to edit documents from within the relationship field.
sortOptions	Define a default sorting order for the options within a Relationship field's dropdown. More details
placeholder	Define a custom text or function to replace the generic default placeholder
appearance	Set to drawer or select to change the behavior of the field. Defaults to select.

Sort Options

You can specify sortOptions in two ways:

As a string:

Provide a string to define a global default sort field for all relationship field dropdowns across different collections. You can prefix the field name with a minus symbol ("-") to sort in descending order.

Example:

sortOptions: 'fieldName',

This configuration will sort all relationship field dropdowns by "fieldName" in ascending order.

As an object :

Specify an object where keys are collection slugs and values are strings representing the field names to sort by. This allows for different sorting fields for each collection's relationship dropdown.

Example:

sortOptions: {
  "pages": "fieldName1",
  "posts": "-fieldName2",
  "categories": "fieldName3"
}

In this configuration:

• Dropdowns related to pages will be sorted by "fieldName1" in ascending order.
• Dropdowns for posts will use "fieldName2" for sorting in descending order (noted by the "-" prefix).
• Dropdowns associated with categories will sort based on "fieldName3" in ascending order.

Note: If sortOptions is not defined, the default sorting behavior of the Relationship field dropdown will be used.

Filtering relationship options

Options can be dynamically limited by supplying a query constraint, which will be used both for validating input and filtering available relationships in the UI.

The filterOptions property can either be a Where query, or a function returning true to not filter, false to prevent all, or a Where query. When using a function, it will be called with an argument object with the following properties:

Property	Description
blockData	The data of the nearest parent block. Will be undefined if the field is not within a block or when called on a Filter component within the list view.
data	An object containing the full collection or global document currently being edited. Will be an empty object when called on a Filter component within the list view.
id	The id of the current document being edited. Will be undefined during the create operation or when called on a Filter component within the list view.
relationTo	The collection slug to filter against, limited to this field's relationTo property.
req	The Payload Request, which contains references to payload, user, locale, and more.
siblingData	An object containing document data that is scoped to only fields within the same parent of this field. Will be an empty object when called on a Filter component within the list view.
user	An object containing the currently authenticated user.

Example

import type { CollectionConfig } from 'payload'

export const ExampleCollection: CollectionConfig = {
  slug: 'example-collection',
  fields: [
    {
      name: 'purchase',
      type: 'relationship',
      relationTo: ['products', 'services'],
      filterOptions: ({ relationTo, siblingData }) => {
        // returns a Where query dynamically by the type of relationship
        if (relationTo === 'products') {
          return {
            stock: { greater_than: siblingData.quantity },
          }
        }

        if (relationTo === 'services') {
          return {
            isAvailable: { equals: true },
          }
        }
      },
    },
  ],
}

You can learn more about writing queries here.

**Note:**

When a relationship field has both filterOptions and a custom validate function, the api will not validate filterOptions unless you call the default relationship field validation function imported from payload/shared in your validate function.

Bi-directional relationships

The relationship field on its own is used to define relationships for the document that contains the relationship field, and this can be considered as a "one-way" relationship. For example, if you have a Post that has a category relationship field on it, the related category itself will not surface any information about the posts that have the category set.

However, the relationship field can be used in conjunction with the Join field to produce powerful bi-directional relationship authoring capabilities. If you're interested in bi-directional relationships, check out the documentation for the Join field.

How the data is saved

Given the variety of options possible within the relationship field type, the shape of the data needed for creating and updating these fields can vary. The following sections will describe the variety of data shapes that can arise from this field.

Has One

The most simple pattern of a relationship is to use hasMany: false with a relationTo that allows for only one type of collection.

{
  slug: 'example-collection',
  fields: [
    {
      name: 'owner', // required
      type: 'relationship', // required
      relationTo: 'users', // required
      hasMany: false,
    }
  ]
}

The shape of the data to save for a document with the field configured this way would be:

{
  // ObjectID of the related user
  "owner": "6031ac9e1289176380734024"
}

When querying documents in this collection via REST API, you could query as follows:

?where[owner][equals]=6031ac9e1289176380734024.

Has One - Polymorphic

Also known as dynamic references, in this configuration, the relationTo field is an array of Collection slugs that tells Payload which Collections are valid to reference.

{
  slug: 'example-collection',
  fields: [
    {
      name: 'owner', // required
      type: 'relationship', // required
      relationTo: ['users', 'organizations'], // required
      hasMany: false,
    }
  ]
}

The shape of the data to save for a document with more than one relationship type would be:

{
  "owner": {
    "relationTo": "organizations",
    "value": "6031ac9e1289176380734024"
  }
}

Here is an example for how to query documents by this data (note the difference in referencing the owner.value):

?where[owner.value][equals]=6031ac9e1289176380734024.

You can also query for documents where a field has a relationship to a specific Collection:

?where[owners.relationTo][equals]=organizations.

This query would return only documents that have an owner relationship to organizations.

Has Many

The hasMany tells Payload that there may be more than one collection saved to the field.

{
  slug: 'example-collection',
  fields: [
    {
      name: 'owners', // required
      type: 'relationship', // required
      relationTo: 'users', // required
      hasMany: true,
    }
  ]
}

To save to the hasMany relationship field we need to send an array of IDs:

{
  "owners": ["6031ac9e1289176380734024", "602c3c327b811235943ee12b"]
}

When querying documents, the format does not change for arrays:

?where[owners][equals]=6031ac9e1289176380734024.

Has Many - Polymorphic

{
  slug: 'example-collection',
  fields: [
    {
      name: 'owners', // required
      type: 'relationship', // required
      relationTo: ['users', 'organizations'], // required
      hasMany: true,
      required: true,
    }
  ]
}

Relationship fields with hasMany set to more than one kind of collections save their data as an array of objects—each containing the Collection slug as the relationTo value, and the related document id for the value:

{
  "owners": [
    {
      "relationTo": "users",
      "value": "6031ac9e1289176380734024"
    },
    {
      "relationTo": "organizations",
      "value": "602c3c327b811235943ee12b"
    }
  ]
}

Querying is done in the same way as the earlier Polymorphic example:

?where[owners.value][equals]=6031ac9e1289176380734024.

Querying and Filtering Polymorphic Relationships

Polymorphic and non-polymorphic relationships must be queried differently because of how the related data is stored and may be inconsistent across different collections. Because of this, filtering polymorphic relationship fields from the Collection List admin UI is limited to the id value.

For a polymorphic relationship, the response will always be an array of objects. Each object will contain the relationTo and value properties.

The data can be queried by the related document ID:

?where[field.value][equals]=6031ac9e1289176380734024.

Or by the related document Collection slug:

?where[field.relationTo][equals]=your-collection-slug.

However, you cannot query on any field values within the related document. Since we are referencing multiple collections, the field you are querying on may not exist and break the query.

**Note:**

You cannot query on a field within a polymorphic relationship as you would with a non-polymorphic relationship.

Custom Components

Field

Server Component

import type React from 'react'
import { RelationshipField } from '@payloadcms/ui'
import type { RelationshipFieldServerComponent } from 'payload'

export const CustomRelationshipFieldServer: RelationshipFieldServerComponent =
  ({ clientField, path, schemaPath, permissions }) => {
    return (
      <RelationshipField
        field={clientField}
        path={path}
        schemaPath={schemaPath}
        permissions={permissions}
      />
    )
  }

Client Component

'use client'
import React from 'react'
import { RelationshipField } from '@payloadcms/ui'
import type { RelationshipFieldClientComponent } from 'payload'

export const CustomRelationshipFieldClient: RelationshipFieldClientComponent = (
  props,
) => {
  return <RelationshipField {...props} />
}

Label

Server Component

import React from 'react'
import { FieldLabel } from '@payloadcms/ui'
import type { RelationshipFieldLabelServerComponent } from 'payload'

export const CustomRelationshipFieldLabelServer: RelationshipFieldLabelServerComponent =
  (clientField, path) => {
    return (
      <FieldLabel
        label={clientField?.label || clientField?.name}
        path={path}
        required={clientField?.required}
      />
    )
  }

Client Component

'use client'
import React from 'react'
import { FieldLabel } from '@payloadcms/ui'
import type { RelationshipFieldLabelClientComponent } from 'payload'

export const CustomRelationshipFieldLabelClient: RelationshipFieldLabelClientComponent =
  ({ field, path }) => {
    return (
      <FieldLabel
        label={field?.label || field?.name}
        path={path}
        required={field?.required}
      />
    )
  }