Getting Started

Filament is a process-aware UI framework for Phoenix LiveView that brings React-style component composition and hooks to your Elixir applications. This guide walks you through building a working TodoList component — the same one in the examples/todo directory — so you understand defcomponent, props, use_state, event closures, child components, and how to test everything with Filament's rung-2 isolation API. By the end you will have a passing test suite and a clear mental model of the Filament component lifecycle.

What you need

• Elixir 1.17+ and Phoenix LiveView 1.0+
• Add Filament to your project:

# mix.exs
{:filament, "~> 0.1"}

• Run mix deps.get and then use Filament.Component in any module where you want to define components.

Defining a component

Every Filament component lives inside a defcomponent block. Here is the real TodoItem component from examples/todo:

defmodule TodoWeb.Components.TodoItem do
  use Filament.Component

  defcomponent do
    prop(:todo, :map, required: true)
    prop(:on_toggle, :function, default: nil)
    prop(:on_remove, :function, default: nil)

    defp item_class(%{completed: true}), do: "completed"
    defp item_class(_), do: ""

    def render(%{todo: todo, on_toggle: on_toggle, on_remove: on_remove}) do
      ~F"""
      <li class={item_class(todo)}>
        <div class="view">
          <input
            class="toggle"
            type="checkbox"
            checked={todo.completed}
            on_click={on_toggle}
          />
          <label>{todo.text}</label>
          <button class="destroy" on_click={on_remove}>×</button>
        </div>
      </li>
      """
    end
  end
end

Key points:

• use Filament.Component imports defcomponent, prop, the ~F sigil, and all hooks into your module.
• prop(:name, :type, opts) declares a typed attribute. Pass required: true to make the prop mandatory or default: value to make it optional.
• render/1 receives a plain map of props — pattern-match directly.
• Inside ~F""" ... """, use {expression} for interpolation and @prop_name as a shorthand for the same — both resolve to local variables, not an assigns map.
• Event attributes like on_click={handler} accept zero-arity or one-arity functions; Filament wires them to phx-click automatically.

Local state with use_state

use_state/1 gives a component a piece of mutable local state. The TodoList component uses it to track the active filter:

def render(%{title: title}) do
  store = use_observable(fn -> Todo.Store.start_link([]) end)
  todos = use_observable(store, fn :disconnected -> []; s -> s end)

  {filter, set_filter} = use_state(:all)
  filtered = apply_filter(todos, filter)
  # ...
end

• use_state(initial) returns {current_value, setter}.
• On the first render, current_value is initial. On subsequent renders it is whatever was last passed to setter.(new_value).
• Calling setter.(new_value) sends a message to the owning LiveView, which triggers a re-render of only the affected fiber.
• Rules of hooks: call use_state (and all hooks) at the top level of render/1, never inside if, case, or comprehensions. Hook identity depends on call order.

Event closures

All Filament event handlers are plain Elixir closures attached to on_* template attributes. The on_* name maps directly to the corresponding Phoenix event: on_click → phx-click, on_submit → phx-submit, on_change → phx-change, and so on. Filament wires the closure to a filament:fiber_id:index ref automatically — you never write wire format by hand.

The TodoList component handles form submission and item interactions entirely through closures:

{text, set_text} = use_state("")

~F"""
<form on_submit={fn %{"text" => val} ->
  if String.trim(val) != "", do: Todo.Store.add(store, val)
  set_text.("")
end}>
  <input name="text" class="new-todo" value={text} placeholder="What needs to be done?" />
</form>

<ul class="todo-list">
  {for todo <- filtered do}
    <TodoItem
      todo={todo}
      on_toggle={fn -> Todo.Store.toggle(store, todo.id) end}
      on_remove={fn -> Todo.Store.remove(store, todo.id) end}
    />
  {end}
</ul>
"""

• Zero-arity closures receive no arguments; one-arity closures receive the event params map (for on_submit, the full form data; for on_change, the changed field map including _target).
• Closures capture the render-time environment. todo.id in the loop above is correctly bound per iteration, and set_text from use_state is in scope inside on_submit.
• Because closures own both the side effect and any state updates, there is no handle_event callback to write — the closure is the handler.

Keyboard events with on_key

on_key binds a window-level keydown listener to any element. The handler receives two arguments: the key string and a %Filament.KeyModifiers{} struct containing the modifier state. This lets you pattern-match cleanly on both the key and modifiers together:

~F"""
<div on_key={fn
  "Escape", _              -> close_modal()
  "s",      %{ctrl: true}  -> save()
  "?",      _              -> show_help()
  _,        _              -> :ignore
end}>
  {children}
</div>

%Filament.KeyModifiers{} has fields ctrl, shift, alt, and meta, all defaulting to false. Unspecified fields are ignored in a pattern match, so %{ctrl: true} matches any combination that includes Ctrl held down.

Under the hood, Filament injects a FilamentKey Phoenix LiveView hook via a <script data-phx-runtime-hook> tag in Filament.LiveView.render/1. No JavaScript configuration or liveSocket hook registration is required — it activates automatically whenever you use on_key.

Full event attribute reference:

Composing components and keyed lists

Child components are rendered with their module name as a tag in ~F templates:

~F"""
<section class="main">
  <ul class="todo-list">
    {for todo <- filtered do}
      <TodoItem
        todo={todo}
        on_toggle={fn -> Todo.Store.toggle(store, todo.id) end}
        on_remove={fn -> Todo.Store.remove(store, todo.id) end}
      />
    {end}
  </ul>
</section>
"""

• <TodoItem prop={value} /> passes props to the child component exactly like HTML attributes.

• Each iteration of the for loop creates a separate fiber tracked by position (index). For lists that can be reordered or have items deleted, add a :key attribute:

  <TodoItem :key={todo.id} todo={todo} on_toggle={...} on_remove={...} />

  Without :key, Filament matches children by position; removing an item in the middle shifts all subsequent fibers. With :key={todo.id}, Filament matches by identity and cleanly unmounts only the removed item.

Testing with Filament.Test

Filament's test API mounts a component tree in-process — no browser, no WebSocket, no endpoint. Tests run with async: true and finish in milliseconds.

defmodule Todo.Test do
  use ExUnit.Case, async: true
  import Filament.Test

  test "renders todo items after submission" do
    view =
      mount!(TodoWeb.Components.TodoList, %{})
      |> submit!("form", %{"text" => "First task"})
      |> submit!("form", %{"text" => "Second task"})

    assert render_text(view) =~ "First task"
    assert render_text(view) =~ "Second task"
  end
end

Bang variants (mount!, click!, submit!, change!, blur!, key_down!) unwrap {:ok, view} and raise on error, enabling pipelines. Use the non-bang forms when asserting on errors.

See the Testing guide for the full API reference: observable stubs, async assertions, keyboard events, and more.

Next steps

• Testing guide — full test API reference: bang/pipeline helpers, observable stubs, async assertions, keyboard events.
• Observables guide — Observable.GenServer, use_observable/1 and use_observable/2, and the change-or-bust pattern.
• Hooks guide — composing built-in hooks and writing custom hooks for domain logic.
• API reference — see Filament.Hooks for the full hook signatures and Filament.Component for the behaviour callbacks.