obsidian/wiki/payloadcms/fields-ui.md

title	aliases	tags	sources	created	updated
UI Field	ui-field presentational-field payload-ui-field	payloadcms fields admin-panel react components	raw/fields__ui.md	2026-05-15	2026-05-15

Overview

The UI field is presentational-only — it stores no data and has no effect on documents. It lets you inject arbitrary React components directly into the Admin Panel, nested among your other fields.

import type { Field } from 'payload'

export const MyUIField: Field = {
  name: 'myCustomUIField',
  type: 'ui',
  admin: {
    components: {
      Field: '/path/to/MyCustomUIField',
      Cell: '/path/to/MyCustomUICell',
    },
  },
}

Config Options

Option	Required	Description
name	✅	Unique identifier for this field
label	—	Human-readable label
admin.components.Field	✅	React component rendered in Edit View
admin.components.Cell	—	React component rendered in List View cells
admin.disabled	—	true to disable everywhere, or granular { field?, column?, filter?, groupBy?, bulkEdit? }
custom	—	Extension point for plugin data

Default: UI fields have disabled: { bulkEdit: true } by default.

Use Cases

• Descriptive text — add context/instructions between fields in Edit View
• Action buttons — "Refund" button in Order sidebar, "Clear Cache" button, "View Page" shortcut
• Custom controls — any React component injected exactly where editors need it

Key Takeaways

• UI field has zero impact on stored data — purely admin UI enhancement
• admin.components.Field is required (the component to render)
• admin.components.Cell renders in List View columns — optional
• Bulk edit is disabled by default (no data to edit)
• Can trigger fetch calls, external APIs, or side effects from within the Admin Panel
• Use wiki/payloadcms/fields-overview admin.condition to show/hide based on other field values

Related

• wiki/payloadcms/fields-overview — cross-cutting field config, admin.components pattern
• wiki/payloadcms/custom-components-authoring — how to write RSC vs Client components, Import Map
• wiki/payloadcms/fields-row — another presentational-only layout field (horizontal grouping)
• wiki/payloadcms/fields-collapsible — presentational layout with collapsible header
• wiki/payloadcms/admin-panel-overview — Edit View and List View structure

Sources

• raw/fields__ui.md — https://payloadcms.com/docs/fields/ui