Reference
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Vercel Toolbar

Learn how to use the Vercel Toolbar to leave feedback, navigate through important dashboard pages, share deployments, utilize Draft Mode for previewing unpublished content, and Visual Editing for editing content in real-time.
Table of Contents

Vercel Toolbar is available on all plans

The Vercel Toolbar is a tool that assists in the iteration and development process. Through the toolbar, you can leave feedback on deployments with Comments, navigate through important dashboard pages, share deployments, utilize Draft Mode for previewing unpublished content, and Visual Editing for editing content in real-time.

The Vercel Toolbar on a preview deployment
The Vercel Toolbar on a preview deployment

The Vercel Toolbar provides the following features:

FeatureDescription
CommentsLeave feedback on your preview and production environment
Navigate to useful dashboard pagesNavigate to useful dashboard pages
Share your deploymentShare your deployment with others
Draft ModeUse Draft Mode to preview unpublished content from your headless CMS
Feature FlagsRead and set feature flag overrides for your applications
Visual EditingUse Visual Editing to edit content in real-time
Layout ShiftsCheck for Layout Shifts in your deployment

The toolbar appears on all preview deployments by default, and can be added to production or local environments using the @vercel/toolbar npm package. See using in production or locally for more information.

While logged into the toolbar, you can navigate to many of the project and deployment settings by:

  • Selecting the Menu icon in the Vercel Toolbar ()
  • Entering k (cmd+shift+k or ctrl+shift+k on Windows). See the Using your own CMD + K feature section if your app already implements a k shortcut

Doing so will open a menu that allows you to navigate to useful pages and tools, such as:

FeatureDescription
SearchQuickly search the toolbar and access dashboard pages.
Quick branch accessView the current branch and commit hash.
Switch branchesQuickly switch between branches (on preview and production branches - not locally).
Layout shiftsOpen the Layout Shift Tool to identify elements causing layout shifts.
CommentsAccess the Comments panel to leave or view feedback.
View inbox View all open comments.
Navigate to your teamNavigate to your team's dashboard.
Navigate to your projectNavigate to your project's dashboard.
Navigate to your deploymentNavigate to your deployment's dashboard.
Hide Toolbar Hide the toolbar.
Disable for sessionDisable the toolbar for the current session.
Set preferencesSet personal preferences for the toolbar.
LogoutLogout of the toolbar.

If your app already has a k (cmd+k or ctrl+k on Windows) feature, you can still open your menu by:

  • Adding event.preventDefault() to the handler that toggles the menu, to prevent Vercel's Command Menu from opening with the k shortcut
  • Using k (cmd+shift+k or ctrl+shift+k on Windows) to open Vercel's Command Menu

You can use the Share button in deployments with the Vercel Toolbar enabled, as well as in all preview deployments, to share your deployment's generated URL. To learn more, see Sharing Deployments.

If you're on an Enterprise team, you will be able to see who shared deployment URLs in your audit logs.

The Vercel Toolbar is a tool that assists in the iteration and development process. The toolbar's comments UI is not injected into the DOM when your preview deployment is tested in Google Lighthouse, or when visited by a bot or a headless browser.

To opt out of the toolbar during a preview deployment, you can do one of the following:

Use the toolbar's options menu:

  1. In the toolbar menu, select either the Hide Interface or Disable for Session options. This action will hide the toolbar in the current browser tab
  2. Open the preview deployment in a new tab to display the toolbar again

Use the x-vercel-skip-toolbar header to prevent interference with automated end-to-end tests:

  1. Add the x-vercel-skip-toolbar header to the request sent to the preview deployment URL
  2. Optionally assign the value 1 to the header. The presence of the header itself triggers the disabling of the toolbar

When logged into the Vercel Toolbar, you'll find a Preferences button in the options menu. In this menu, you can update the following settings:

SettingDescription
NotificationsSet when you will receive notifications for comments in the deployment you're viewing
ThemeSelect your color theme
Chrome ExtensionAdd Vercel's extension to your browser for easy attachment of screenshots to your comments
Layout Shift DetectionEnable or disable the Layout Shift Tool
Reset OnboardingSee tooltips above the comments toolbar explaining the functionality of each button
Last updated on April 27, 2024