A controller is the basic organizational unit of a Stimulus application.

import { Controller } from "stimulus"

export default class extends Controller {
  // …

Controllers are instances of JavaScript classes that you define in your application. Each controller class inherits from the Controller base class exported by the stimulus module.


Every controller belongs to a Stimulus Application instance and is associated with an HTML element. Within a controller class, you can access the controller’s:


Define your controller classes in JavaScript modules, one per file. Export each controller class as the module’s default object, as in the example above.

Place these modules in the controllers/ directory. Name the files [identifier]_controller.js, where [identifier] corresponds to each controller’s identifier.


An identifier is the name you use to reference a controller class in HTML.

When you add a data-controller attribute to an element, Stimulus reads the identifier from the attribute’s value and creates a new instance of the corresponding controller class.

For example, this element has a controller which is an instance of the class defined in controllers/reference_controller.js:

<div data-controller="reference"></div>


When Stimulus connects a controller to an element, that element and all of its children make up the controller’s scope.

For example, the <div> and <h1> below are part of the controller’s scope, but the surrounding <main> element is not.

  <div data-controller="reference">

Multiple Controllers

The data-controller attribute’s value is a space-separated list of identifiers:

<div data-controller="clipboard list-item"></div>

It’s common for any given element on the page to have many controllers. In the example above, the <div> has two connected controllers, clipboard and list-item.

Similarly, it’s common for multiple elements on the page to reference the same controller class:

  <li data-controller="list-item">One</li>
  <li data-controller="list-item">Two</li>
  <li data-controller="list-item">Three</li>

Here, each <li> has its own instance of the list-item controller.

Naming Conventions

Always use camelCase for method and property names in a controller class.

When an identifier is composed of more than one word, write the words in kebab-case (i.e., by using dashes: date-picker, list-item).

In filenames, separate multiple words using either dashes or underscores (kebab-case or snake_case: controllers/date_picker.js, controllers/list-item.js).


If you use Stimulus with the @stimulus/webpack-helpers package, your application will automatically load and register controller classes following the conventions above.

If you don’t use the webpack helpers, your application must manually load and register each controller class.

Registering Controllers Manually

To manually register a controller class with an identifier, first import the class, then call the Application#register method on your application object:

import ReferenceController from "./controllers/reference_controller"

application.register("reference", ReferenceController)

You can also register a controller class inline instead of importing it from a module:

import { Controller } from "stimulus"

application.register("reference", class extends Controller {
  // …

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