Forms & Validation

Implement form-centric Hotwire workflows with Turbo Frames and Stimulus.

Core Workflow

1. Identify the form flow: create/edit, inline edit, typeahead, modal form, or external controls.
2. Wrap the form interaction scope in a Turbo Frame when validation errors must rerender in place.
3. Return 422 for validation failures and 303 for successful redirects.
4. Handle post-submit behavior with turbo:submit-end only when Turbo defaults are insufficient.
5. Preserve user context during rerenders (focus/caret/selection).

Guardrails

• Keep one source of truth for input state; avoid duplicate controls across frame and non-frame DOM.
• Use the HTML form attribute for controls rendered outside the target <form> hierarchy.
• Avoid firing submit logic on every keystroke without debounce/throttle.
• Keep post-submit behavior explicit when form responses update only a frame.

Load References Selectively

Open only the file needed for the current request.

• Inline editing: references/2024-02-27-turbo-frames-inline-edit.md
• Modal validation flows: references/2024-05-21-turbo-frames-modals-validation.md
• Typeahead search: references/2023-11-07-turbo-frames-typeahead-search.md
• Typeahead validation with focus handling: references/2025-10-20-turbo-frames-typeahead-validation.md
• External form controls in frames: references/2026-02-03-turbo-frames-external-form.md
• Stimulus action parameters for forms: references/2024-01-16-stimulus-action-parameters.md

Use references/INDEX.md for the full catalog.

Escalate to Neighbor Skills

• Navigation/history/cache behavior: use hwc-navigation-content
• WebSocket or Turbo Stream push updates: use hwc-realtime-streaming
• Media upload/playback behavior: use hwc-media-content
• Generic UX polish (spinners/progress/transitions): use hwc-ux-feedback
• General Stimulus API design questions: use hwc-stimulus-fundamentals