> For AI agents: the complete Sanity documentation index is available at [https://www.sanity.io/docs/llms.txt](https://www.sanity.io/docs/llms.txt).

# Interact with the Dashboard

Use App SDK hooks to read Dashboard state, navigate, and open panels from your app, panels, and tiles.

Your app, panels, and tiles can read from and act on the Dashboard they run in: the organization, the signed-in user, the color scheme, navigation, and panels. The App SDK provides this through hooks in `@sanity/sdk-react/dashboard`.

## Requirements

- `@sanity/sdk-react` 3.9.0 or later.
- An app configured with `defineApplication`, running under `sanity dev` or deployed with it. Apps deployed before Dashboard 2.0 run in an iframe and only support some hooks, such as `useNavigate` and `useOrganizationId`.

## Set up the App SDK in every view

Hooks need an App SDK instance. In an app's window, `SanityApp` in `App.tsx` provides one. Panels and tiles each render in their own island, so wrap each panel component and tile in `SanityApp`, and any panel title that uses hooks:

**src/Providers.tsx**

```tsx
import {SanityApp} from '@sanity/sdk-react'
import type {ReactNode} from 'react'

export function Providers({children}: {children: ReactNode}) {
  return (
    <SanityApp fallback={null}>
      {children}
    </SanityApp>
  )
}
```

Web workers don't run React, so they can't use these hooks. A worker gets `bus` from `unstable_defineService` instead, which reaches the Dashboard message bus and the app's own views.

## Authentication

Inside the Dashboard, `SanityApp` signs your app in with the Dashboard user's session. You don't need to add a login flow or handle tokens.

## Hooks for the Dashboard

- `useNavigate`: Keep your app's router in sync with the Dashboard, and navigate anywhere in it.
- `urlFor`: Build Dashboard URLs for apps, Studio documents, Media Library, and Canvas.
- `useNavigateToStudioDocument`: Open a document in a Studio.
- `useOrganizationId`: Read the current organization's ID.
- `useCurrentUser`: Read the signed-in user.
- `useApplications`: List the organization's apps and their views.
- `useTopic`: Read Dashboard state, such as `preferences.color-scheme` or `panels.mode`.
- `useEmit`: Send a Dashboard event, such as `panels.mode.set`.
- `useWorker`: Post to one of your app's workers and listen to its messages.

These are the hooks most apps need. For every export, including types, URL builders, and the message bus, see the `@sanity/sdk-react/dashboard` reference at reference.sanity.io.

> [!WARNING]
> Import from @sanity/sdk-react/dashboard
> `useCurrentUser`, `useApplications`, and `useAuthToken` also exist in `@sanity/sdk-react`, where they behave differently. Import them from `@sanity/sdk-react/dashboard` to read from the Dashboard.

## Outside the Dashboard

Most of these hooks throw when no Dashboard is present, for example when you open the app's own port directly instead of the Dashboard URL:

**Error**

```text
Cannot read topic "preferences.color-scheme" without an installed dashboard message bus
```

`useOrganizationId` returns `undefined` instead, and `urlFor` works anywhere.

## Next steps

[Navigate the Dashboard](https://www.sanity.io/docs/dashboard-beta/navigate-the-dashboard)
Sync your router and link to other apps and Studios.

[Read Dashboard state](https://www.sanity.io/docs/dashboard-beta/read-dashboard-state)
Read the organization, user, and color scheme.

[Open and close panels](https://www.sanity.io/docs/dashboard-beta/open-and-close-panels)
Control your app's panels from code.

[Talk to your app's worker](https://www.sanity.io/docs/dashboard-beta/talk-to-your-apps-worker)
Post to a worker from a view and listen for its messages.