How to display documents that reference a specific document in Sanity?

Yes! There's a great way to display documents that reference a specific document in Sanity Studio. Sanity's Content Lake indexes references bi-directionally, which means you can query "incoming references" - documents that contain references to the current document.

The Easy Method: Documents Pane Plugin

The simplest approach is to use the Documents Pane plugin. This plugin lets you display GROQ query results directly in your Studio's view pane, which is perfect for showing which pages use a specific widget.

Installation

sanity install documents-pane

Setup

In your Structure Builder configuration (typically deskStructure.js), add this to your widget document views:

import DocumentsPane from 'sanity-plugin-documents-pane'

S.view
  .component(DocumentsPane)
  .options({
    query: `*[!(_id in path("drafts.**")) && references($id)]`,
    params: { id: `_id` },
    useDraft: false
  })
  .title('Referenced By')

This configuration:

• query: Finds all documents (excluding drafts) that reference the current document's ID
• params: Passes the current document's _id as a parameter
• useDraft: Set to false to only show published documents

When editors open a widget in Studio, they'll see a "Referenced By" tab showing all the pages that use that widget. They can click through to those pages directly from the widget's edit view.

How It Works

As explained in the Connected Content docs, references in Sanity are always bi-directional. When a page references a widget, the Content Lake automatically indexes this relationship in both directions. This means you can query:

• From the page to find what widgets it uses
• From the widget to find what pages reference it (incoming references)

Alternative: Custom GROQ Query

If you need more control or want to display this information elsewhere, you can use the references() function in GROQ directly:

*[_type == "page" && references("widget-id-here")]

The Documents Pane plugin is the easiest solution since it provides a ready-made UI component that integrates seamlessly into your Studio's document editing experience. It's exactly designed for this "show me what references this" use case!