Should we be able to do this with layouts?

[j4w8n]

I've been wanting to record a video about layouts, so I've been experimenting. One aspect of confusion is resetting with @, and how to design routes which don't inherit from the root layout.

For example, people will do src/routes/admin/+page@.svelte and expect the admin page to not inherit from the root layout. So they're essentially trying to reset to a blank layout. But, as we now know, this simply resets them to the root layout.

I've seen two ways of not inheriting from the root layout:

1. Don't create a src/routes/+layout.svelte file. Only create layout groups or regular directory routes. Then you can create whatever layouts you want, even if none of them are a blank layout. So in the example, none of the pages under (corp) will inherit from layouts in (main) and vice versa.

src/routes/
├ (corp)/
│ ├ about/
│ │ └ +page.svelte
│ ├ careers/
│ │ └ +page.svelte
│ └ +layout.svelte
└ (main)/
  ├ (app)/
  │ ├ admin/
  │ │ └ +page@(main).svelte
  │ ├ dashboard/
  │ │ └ +page.svelte
  │ ├ item/
  │ │ └ +page.svelte
  │ └ +layout.svelte
  ├ +layout.svelte
  └ +page.svelte

2. Create a blank, slot-only root layout src/routes/+layout.svelte. Then if you want to reset to a blank layout, reference it with +page@.svelte or +layout@.svelte.

But I just ran across another way to reset to a blank layout: Don't even create the blank root layout file from number 2. Then if you reference the root layout, in either of the above two scenarios, your +page@.svelte or +layout@.svelte will inherit from a non-existing root layout file - which of course is blank. In this example, it doesn't matter if marketing is a directory or if you transform it into a layout group with (marketing). Either way, the careers/+page@.svelte will not inherit the marketing layout file and will be reset to a blank layout.

src/routes/
├ admin/
│ └ +page.svelte
├ marketing/
│ ├ about/
│ │ └ +page.svelte
│ ├ careers/
│ │ └ +page@.svelte
│ └ +layout.svelte
└ +page.svelte

My question is, are we supposed to be able to reference a non-existing src/routes/+layout.svelte file and not get an error? If this is expected behavior, I believe some clarifications in the docs will help people understand their options.

[j4w8n]

Found my answer in the docs. If you don't create a root layout file, SvelteKit has a default. So the above is expected behavior; as you are in fact referencing an existing root layout; even if you didn't create the file yourself.