Advanced Reference Array

Sanity Advanced Reference Array

🚀 Enhanced reference array component for Sanity Studio with search, sort, and bulk operations

A powerful, TypeScript-ready component that supercharges Sanity's reference arrays with advanced search capabilities, intelligent sorting, and intuitive bulk operations. Built from real-world usage in production Sanity studios.

Drop it onto any array of reference fields as a custom input component. Editors get a live search box that adds documents with a single click (or all at once), a sort mode that reorders the array by any field on the referenced documents, and a guarded "remove all". Everything is written back through normal Sanity patches, so the stored value stays a plain reference array.

🎥 See It In Action

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/bb53e81b-4475-4510-bd86-452b954e3d2c

Watch the Advanced Reference Array in action - featuring smart search, click-to-add functionality, bulk operations, and dynamic sorting.

✨ Features

🔍 Smart Search

• Live GROQ queries with debounced search
• Smart filtering - automatically hides items already in your array
• Individual click-to-add - click any search result to add it instantly
• Bulk "Add All" - add multiple items at once
• Keyboard shortcuts - Ctrl+Enter to add all, Escape to clear search

🎯 Dynamic Sorting

• Sort by any field in your referenced documents
• Visual sort indicators - see if your list is already sorted
• Toggle sort direction - ascending/descending with one click
• Browser compatible - works across all modern browsers

🛡️ Safety & UX

• Danger mode - prevents accidental bulk deletions
• Confirmation dialogs for destructive operations
• Loading states and error handling
• Responsive design - works on mobile and desktop
• Accessibility ready - keyboard navigation support

⚡ Performance

• Debounced search - no unnecessary API calls
• Smart caching - efficient data fetching
• TypeScript support - full type safety
• Collapsible list - long arrays auto-collapse so the form stays navigable

📦 Installation

npm install @liiift-studio/sanity-advanced-reference-array

Peer dependencies (sanity, react, @sanity/ui, @sanity/icons) are already present in any Sanity Studio — see Compatibility.

🚀 Quick Start

Attach the component as the input for an array of references. No configuration is required — the defaults are the behaviour shown in the video above.

import { defineType, defineField } from 'sanity'
import { AdvancedRefArray } from '@liiift-studio/sanity-advanced-reference-array'

export const myDocument = defineType({
  name: 'myDocument',
  type: 'document',
  fields: [
    defineField({
      name: 'relatedItems',
      title: 'Related Items',
      type: 'array',
      of: [
        { type: 'reference', to: [{ type: 'product' }, { type: 'article' }] },
      ],
      components: {
        input: AdvancedRefArray,
      },
    }),
  ],
})

Data shape

The stored value is an ordinary Sanity reference array — this component changes the editing experience, not the data. Sorting rewrites the array order; nothing else about the shape changes.

"relatedItems": [
  { "_type": "reference", "_key": "a1b2c3d4", "_ref": "product-oxford" },
  { "_type": "reference", "_key": "e5f6g7h8", "_ref": "article-on-serifs" }
]

Query it exactly as you would any reference array:

*[_type == "myDocument"]{
  relatedItems[]->{ _id, title }
}

⚙️ Configuration

Read this before copying a config example. There are two different mechanisms, and most options only work through one of them.

Sanity passes a fixed set of props to a custom input component — you cannot pass arbitrary settings through the field's options object and have them arrive as props. So this component reads its configuration from two places:

flowchart TB
    W["Wrapper component<br/>(props you pass)"] -->|"most options"| C["AdvancedRefArray"]
    S["Field schema<br/>options: { … }"] -->|"collapsibleList<br/>collapseThreshold only"| C
    D["Built-in defaults"] --> C
    C --> R["Rendered input"]

Resolution order for the two schema-readable options is explicit prop → schema options → default. Every other option is prop-only.

Configure via a wrapper (the general case)

Wrap the component to bind props, then use the wrapper as your input:

import { defineType, defineField } from 'sanity'
import { AdvancedRefArray } from '@liiift-studio/sanity-advanced-reference-array'

// Bind options once, reuse across fields
const CuratedRefArray = (props) => (
  <AdvancedRefArray
    {...props}
    maxSearchResults={20}
    searchPlaceholder="Search products..."
    allowBulkAdd={false}
    showItemCount={false}
  />
)

export const collection = defineType({
  name: 'collection',
  type: 'document',
  fields: [
    defineField({
      name: 'featuredItems',
      type: 'array',
      of: [{ type: 'reference', to: [{ type: 'article' }] }],
      components: { input: CuratedRefArray },
    }),
  ],
})

Configure via schema options (collapse only)

defineField({
  name: 'relatedItems',
  type: 'array',
  of: [{ type: 'reference', to: [{ type: 'product' }] }],
  components: { input: AdvancedRefArray },
  options: {
    collapsibleList: true,    // read from schema options
    collapseThreshold: 10,    // read from schema options
  },
})

Option reference

Document-scoped search with filterGroq / filterParams

The most powerful pairing: narrow the search to documents related to the one being edited. filterParams receives the current document and returns GROQ parameters; filterGroq is appended to the search condition.

// Only offer fonts that belong to the typeface currently being edited
const typefaceParams = (doc) => ({ typefaceName: doc?.title || '' })

const FontsRefArray = (props) => (
  <AdvancedRefArray
    {...props}
    filterGroq="lower(typefaceName) == lower($typefaceName)"
    filterParams={typefaceParams}
  />
)

This is exactly how @liiift-studio/sanity-font-manager scopes its font pickers.

How search and sort actually resolve fields

Two behaviours worth knowing, because they are automatic rather than configured:

• Search matches the title field only. The generated query is *[_type in $types && title match $search][0...maxSearchResults]. Referenced documents therefore need a title to be findable. There is no searchFields option — searching additional fields is not currently implemented.
• Sortable fields are auto-discovered. On entering sort mode the component expands the referenced documents and offers every non-underscore-prefixed key of the first result as a sort field. There is no sortableFields option — the list comes from your data.

Earlier drafts of this README documented searchFields and sortableFields options. They were never implemented; the behaviour above is what ships. Both remain reasonable feature requests — see Contributing.

🎯 Real-World Examples

E-commerce Product Relations

// Perfect for related products, cross-sells, upsells
const ProductRefArray = (props) => (
  <AdvancedRefArray {...props} maxSearchResults={20} searchPlaceholder="Search products..." />
)

defineField({
  name: 'relatedProducts',
  title: 'Related Products',
  type: 'array',
  of: [{ type: 'reference', to: [{ type: 'product' }] }],
  components: { input: ProductRefArray },
})

Content Collections

// Great for curated article collections, featured content.
// Curated content should be added individually, so bulk add is off.
const CuratedArticles = (props) => (
  <AdvancedRefArray {...props} allowBulkAdd={false} filterExisting />
)

defineField({
  name: 'featuredArticles',
  title: 'Featured Articles',
  type: 'array',
  of: [{ type: 'reference', to: [{ type: 'article' }] }],
  components: { input: CuratedArticles },
})

Team & Author Management

// Perfect for assigning multiple team members, contributors
const PeopleRefArray = (props) => (
  <AdvancedRefArray {...props} searchPlaceholder="Search team members..." />
)

defineField({
  name: 'contributors',
  title: 'Contributors',
  type: 'array',
  of: [{ type: 'reference', to: [{ type: 'person' }] }],
  components: { input: PeopleRefArray },
  options: { collapseThreshold: 15 },
})

🔗 Relationship to sanity-font-manager

This package is a required peer dependency of @liiift-studio/sanity-font-manager (declared as ">=1").

sanity-font-manager imports AdvancedRefArray at the top level of its createStylesField schema module, which its package entry re-exports. That is a static ESM import, so if this package is not installed, importing anything from sanity-font-manager throws at module load — the failure looks like a Studio that will not boot, not a missing-feature warning.

flowchart LR
    FM["@liiift-studio/sanity-font-manager"] -->|"peer >=1 · static import<br/>in createStylesField"| ARA["@liiift-studio/<br/>sanity-advanced-reference-array"]
    ARA -->|"renders the styles /<br/>collections pickers"| ST["Studio typeface document"]

If you use the font manager, install both:

npm install @liiift-studio/sanity-font-manager @liiift-studio/sanity-advanced-reference-array

This package is also useful entirely on its own — it has no dependency on the font manager.

🧩 Compatibility

Supports Sanity Studio v3, v4, v5 and v6 from a single build.

How one build spans four majors

The peer ranges look inconsistent at a glance, so here is the reasoning:

• @sanity/ui v4 moved components to subpath entries. Tooltip, Menu, MenuButton, MenuItem, Code, Popover, Autocomplete, Toast and useToast are no longer on the package root.
• @sanity/icons v5 removed every named *Icon export.
• Both still declare the removed names in their .d.ts, typed never. A named import therefore type-checks, compiles, and only then fails at runtime — the breakage is invisible to tsc and to a green build.
• So this package imports no @sanity/ui or @sanity/icons symbol directly. Everything routes through @liiift-studio/sanity-ui-compat (a real runtime dependency, installed for you), which resolves the installed namespace at runtime and works against either layout.

The @sanity/ui peer is >=2 <5, and that is correct for Sanity v6 — Studio v6 ships @sanity/ui v4, not v5. It is not a stale upper bound.

Verification status

v3 – v6 support is established by the declared peer ranges, green builds, and the runtime-resolving compat layer. Beyond that, this component has been exercised in three in-house Studios. It has not been broadly tested in a running Sanity 6 Studio outside those. Please open an issue if you hit a version-specific problem.

Packaging

• Ships CJS (dist/index.js) and ESM (dist/index.esm.js) with bundled TypeScript declarations (dist/index.d.ts) and source maps.
• Uses the Studio client via useClient({ apiVersion: '2023-01-01' }), so it must render inside a Sanity Studio React tree.

A note on GROQ interpolation

filterGroq and maxSearchResults are interpolated directly into the generated GROQ query. They are intended to come from trusted schema/wrapper configuration only — never wire them to end-user input. Search text itself is correctly passed as a bound $search parameter.

🔧 Development

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Liiift-Studio/sanity-advanced-reference-array.git

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build the package
npm run build

# Run type checking
npm run type-check

# Run linting
npm run lint

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! This component was built from real-world usage across multiple Sanity studios and continues to evolve based on community needs.

Areas for Contribution:

• 🐛 Bug fixes - Help us squash issues
• ✨ Feature requests - Suggest new capabilities (configurable searchFields and sortableFields are both open ideas)
• 📚 Documentation - Improve examples and guides
• 🧪 Testing - Add test coverage
• 🎨 UI/UX - Enhance the user experience

📄 License

MIT © Quinn Keaveney

🙏 Acknowledgments

This component combines the best features from multiple implementations used in production Sanity studios:

• Darden Studio - Original advanced search and sort functionality
• The Designer's Foundry - Individual item selection and UX improvements
• Community feedback - Ongoing enhancements and bug fixes

🔗 Links

• NPM Package
• GitHub Repository
• @liiift-studio/sanity-font-manager - depends on this package
• @liiift-studio/sanity-ui-compat - the v3–v6 compatibility layer
• Sanity.io
• Report Issues

Made with ❤️ for the Sanity community

Transform your reference arrays from basic lists into powerful, searchable, sortable content management tools.