Does the Speculation Rules API support hash routing?

[Rosadojonathan]

Hello,

I've been trying to get the Speculation Rules API to work with my app. I was wondering if the API was supposed to work with hash routing?

Two of my URLs which use hash routing show the hash portion in a red font which leads me to believe it didn't work properly

and when I navigate to those pages by clicking on the link, I don't seem to benefit from the prerendering.

Is there something I'm missing?

Thanks!

[tunetheweb]

I presume by "hash routing" you mean an SPA type architecture?

If so, then no, that is not supported by speculation rules: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/web-platform/prerender-pages#speculation_rules_and_spas

[Rosadojonathan]

Yes, indeed. So I should switch from prerendering to prefetching, and it should still help the loading performance to a certain extent. Thank you!

[tunetheweb]

I would test that to be sure, because Speculation Rules will fetch this as a document, rather than as a your SPA may fetch this (e.g. as a JSON XHR fetch request). You may be better to see what your SPA framework offers for prefetching rather than use Speculation Rules.

[domenic]

I wonder what a good DevTools UI would look like here, to signal that you performed a SPA navigation and so prefetch/prerender does not apply.