Route Groups

Route groups allow you to organize route files together without affecting the actual URL path by prefixing the folder name with an underscore. This is useful for grouping related routes under a shared layout or structure while keeping the URL clean.

routes
├── index.svelte        ➜ /
└── _marketing
    ├── about.svelte    ➜ /about
    └── contact.svelte  ➜ /contact

In this example, both /about and /contact are available at the root level, the _marketing folder name is ignored in the URL.

Combining with Layouts

You can add a layout.svelte inside a route group to wrap all its child routes, without exposing the group name in the URL. This is useful when you have multiple groups (e.g. _dashboard and _app) that each need different layouts.

routes
├── about.svelte             ➜ /about
└── _dashboard
    ├── layout.svelte
    ├── index.svelte         ➜ /
    └── settings.svelte      ➜ /settings

Here, layout.svelte is shared across / and /settings, even though the _dashboard folder doesn’t show up in the path, and /about remains unwrapped even though it's at the same level as the other routes.

TIP

You can also combine it with meta and hooks.

routes
└── _dashboard
   ├── layout.svelte
   ├── hooks.ts
   ├── meta.ts
   └── index.svelte