useCookie

Nuxt provides an SSR-friendly composable to read and write cookies.

Within your pages, components and plugins you can use useCookie to create a reactive reference bound to a specific cookie.

const cookie = useCookie(name, options)

👉

useCookie only works during setup or Lifecycle Hooks.

😌

useCookie ref will automatically serialize and deserialize cookie value to JSON.

Example

The example below creates a cookie called counter. If the cookie doesn’t exist, it is initially set to a random value. Whenever we update the counter variable, the cookie will be updated accordingly.

<template>
  <div>
    <h1> Counter: {{ counter || '-' }}</h1>
    <button @click="counter = null">
      reset
    </button>
    <button @click="counter--">
      -
    </button>
    <button @click="counter++">
      +
    </button>
  </div>
</template>
<script setup>
const counter = useCookie('counter')
counter.value = counter.value || Math.round(Math.random() * 1000)
</script>

Open on StackBlitz

Options

Cookie composable accepts several options which let you modify the behavior of cookies.

Most of the options will be directly passed to the cookie package.

maxAge / expires

maxAge Specifies the number (in seconds) to be the value for the Max-Age Set-Cookie attribute. The given number will be converted to an integer by rounding down. By default, no maximum age is set.

expires: Specifies the Date object to be the value for the Expires Set-Cookie attribute. By default, no expiration is set. Most clients will consider this a “non-persistent cookie” and will delete it on a condition like exiting a web browser application.

💡

Note: The cookie storage model specification states that if both expires and maxAge is set, then maxAge takes precedence, but not all clients may obey this, so if both are set, they should point to the same date and time!

If neither of expires and maxAge is set, the cookie will be session-only and removed when the user closes their browser.

httpOnly

Specifies the boolean value for the HttpOnly Set-Cookie attribute. When truthy, the HttpOnly attribute is set; otherwise it is not. By default, the HttpOnly attribute is not set.

💡

Note: Be careful when setting this to true, as compliant clients will not allow client-side JavaScript to see the cookie in document.cookie.

secure

Specifies the boolean value for the Secure Set-Cookie attribute. When truthy, the Secure attribute is set; otherwise it is not. By default, the Secure attribute is not set.

💡

Note: Be careful when setting this to true, as compliant clients will not send the cookie back to the server in the future if the browser does not have an HTTPS connection. This can lead to hydration errors.

domain

Specifies the value for the Domain Set-Cookie attribute. By default, no domain is set, and most clients will consider applying the cookie only to the current domain.

path

Specifies the value for the Path Set-Cookie attribute. By default, the path is considered the “default path”.

sameSite

Specifies the boolean or string value for the SameSite Set-Cookie attribute.

• true will set the SameSite attribute to Strict for strict same-site enforcement.
• false will not set the SameSite attribute.
• 'lax' will set the SameSite attribute to Lax for lax same-site enforcement.
• 'none' will set the SameSite attribute to None for an explicit cross-site cookie.
• 'strict' will set the SameSite attribute to Strict for strict same-site enforcement.

More information about the different enforcement levels can be found in the specification.

encode

Specifies a function that will be used to encode a cookie’s value. Since the value of a cookie has a limited character set (and must be a simple string), this function can be used to encode a value into a string suited for a cookie’s value.

The default encoder is the JSON.stringify + encodeURIComponent.

decode

Specifies a function that will be used to decode a cookie’s value. Since the value of a cookie has a limited character set (and must be a simple string), this function can be used to decode a previously encoded cookie value into a JavaScript string or other object.

The default decoder is decodeURIComponent + destr.

💡

Note: If an error is thrown from this function, the original, non-decoded cookie value will be returned as the cookie’s value.

default

Specifies a function that returns the cookie’s default value. The function can also return a Ref.

Handling cookies in API routes

You can use useCookie and setCookie from h3 package to set cookies in server API routes.

Example:

import { useCookie, setCookie } from 'h3'
export default (req, res) => {
  // Read counter cookie
  let counter = useCookie(req, 'counter') || 0
  // Increase counter cookie by 1
  setCookie(res, 'counter', ++counter)
  // Send JSON response
  return { counter }
}

🔎

Read and edit a live example in Examples > Composables > Use Cookie