Nuxt 3.18

🧪 Lazy Hydration Macros

Building on the delayed hydration support from v3.16, we now support lazy hydration macros (#31192)! These provide a more ergonomic way to control component hydration:

<script setup lang="ts">
const LazyHydrationMyComponent = defineLazyHydrationComponent(
  'visible',
  () => import('./components/MyComponent.vue')
)
</script>
<template>
  <div>
    <!-- 
      Hydration will be triggered when
      the element(s) is 100px away from entering the viewport.
    -->
    <LazyHydrationMyComponent :hydrate-on-visible="{ rootMargin: '100px' }" />
  </div>
</template>

These macros make it possible to use Nuxt's lazy hydration utilities alongside explicit component imports.

♿️ Accessibility Improvements

We've enhanced accessibility by including <NuxtRouteAnnouncer> in the built-in app.vue (#32621). This means page changes will be announced to screen readers, making navigation more accessible for users with visual impairments. (This only applies if you do not have an app.vue in your project. If you do, please keep <NuxtRouteAnnouncer> in your app.vue!)

🛠️ Enhanced Development Experience

Chrome DevTools Workspace Integration

We've added Chrome DevTools workspace integration (#32084), allowing you to edit your Nuxt source files directly from Chrome DevTools. This creates a better debugging experience where changes made in DevTools are reflected in your actual source files.

Better Component Type Safety

Component type safety has been improved with:

• Typed slots for <ClientOnly> and <DevOnly> (#32707) - better IntelliSense and error checking
• Exported <NuxtTime> prop types (#32547) - easier to extend and customize

New Auto-Import: onWatcherCleanup

The onWatcherCleanup function from vue is now available as an auto-import (#32396), making it easier to clean up watchers and prevent memory leaks:

const { data } = useAsyncData('users', fetchUsers)

watch(data, (newData) => {
  const interval = setInterval(() => {
    // Some periodic task
  }, 1000)
  
  // Clean up when the watcher is stopped
  onWatcherCleanup(() => {
    clearInterval(interval)
  })
})

📊 Observability Enhancements

Page routes are now exposed to Nitro for observability (#32617), enabling better monitoring and analytics integration with supported platforms. This allows observability tools to track page-level metrics more effectively.

🔧 Module Development Improvements

Module authors get several quality-of-life improvements:

Simplified Server Imports

The addServerImports kit utility now supports single imports (#32289), making it easier to add individual server utilities:

// Before: had to wrap in array
addServerImports([{ from: 'my-package', name: 'myUtility' }])

// Now: can pass directly
addServerImports({ from: 'my-package', name: 'myUtility' })

TypeScript Configuration

Modules can now add to typescript.hoist (#32601), giving them more control over TypeScript configuration and type generation.

⚡️ Performance Improvements

We've made several performance optimizations:

• Improved Vite-node communication via internal socket (#32417) for faster development builds
• Migration to oxc-walker (#32250) and oxc for onPrehydrate transforms (#32045) for faster code transformations

🐛 Bug Fixes

This release also includes several important fixes:

• Improved data fetching: When computed keys change, old data is now properly retained (#32616)
• Better scroll behavior: scrollBehaviorType is now only used for hash scrolling (#32622)
• Fixed directory aliases: Added trailing slashes to some directory aliases for better consistency (#32755)

✅ Upgrading

As usual, our recommendation for upgrading is to run:

npx nuxi@latest upgrade --dedupe

This refreshes your lockfile and pulls in all the latest dependencies that Nuxt relies on, especially from the unjs ecosystem.

Full release notes

A huge thank you to everyone who's been a part of this release. Over the next six months, we'll continue backporting compatible v4 features and bug fixes, so please keep the feedback coming! ❤️