How to structure Blazor app chrome with the "empty layout + cascaded page-component shell" pattern — keep LayoutComponentBase empty and put header/nav/content/aside/footer in ONE shell component that pages wrap their content in and that cascades itself. Use when designing a Blazor app's layout/navigation, deciding where chrome belongs, building a layout shell, or when chrome must react to a state store or per-navigation lifecycle that a layout can't provide.

Maintained in timewarp-architecture · Canonical file: SKILL.md

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npx skills add TimeWarpEngineering/timewarp-architecture --skill blazor-layout

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Blazor app shell: empty layout + cascaded page-component shell

A technique for where app chrome (header, nav, content area, aside, footer) lives in a Blazor app.

The pattern: keep the routed layout (LayoutComponentBase) almost empty, and put all chrome in a single shell component that (a) inherits your app's state/base component, (b) renders the layout zones, (c) cascades itself, and (d) is wrapped around each page's content. Pages don't declare chrome; they render their body inside <Shell>.

Why not just put chrome in the layout?

LayoutComponentBase is the obvious place, but it has two limits that bite real apps:

• It can't participate in your state/render pipeline. A layout isn't your state-store base component, so it doesn't get the store's component id, automatic re-render-on-state-change, or DI/lifecycle hooks your other components rely on. If any chrome must react to global state — a busy/activity indicator, current user, unread count, theme — the layout can't do it cleanly.
• Layouts persist across navigations. You get no clean per-navigation lifecycle, and the layout can't expose per-page inputs (title, an aside panel) the way a normal component's parameters can.

A shell that is a normal (state-aware) component solves both: it re-renders with your store, has per-instance lifecycle, and takes Title/Aside/etc. as parameters. You then make it reachable to descendants by cascading it, and you keep the routed layout empty so it doesn't fight the shell.

How to build it

1. Empty layout. Your LayoutComponentBase renders just @Body (plus any genuinely layout-root, run-once concerns — e.g. applying a theme). Guard anything that uses JS interop so it only runs when interactive (not during server prerender). No header/nav/footer here.
2. Shell component. A normal component that inherits your state/base component (not LayoutComponentBase). It:
   • renders the chrome zones using your UI library's layout primitive (header / navigation / content / aside / footer);
   • declares [Parameter]s for per-page inputs (Title, ChildContent, optional Aside);
   • <CascadingValue Value=@this> wraps its tree so descendants can reach the shell;
   • renders @ChildContent in the content zone, and conditionally renders the aside zone only when Aside is supplied.
3. Pages wrap their content in the shell: <Shell Title="…">…page body…</Shell>. Routing stays a separate concern (your @page/route attribute), independent of the shell.

Pitfalls

• One shell, parameterized — not several. Resist per-section shell variants; pass parameters (title, aside, flags) instead.
• Don't name the shell after your routing concept. If your framework/app uses Page or a [Page] route attribute, naming the shell Page collides — give it a distinct name.
• Don't make the shell a LayoutComponentBase (or register it as the routed layout) — that throws away the state/lifecycle benefits that are the whole point.
• Don't put chrome in the layout or in individual pages. It lives in the shell only.
• Guard interop for prerender. Theme/JS-interop calls in the layout or shell must be gated on "is interactive," or they throw during server-side prerender.

Reference implementation (timewarp-architecture)

Concrete instance of the pattern in this repo:

• Empty layout: components/layouts/MainLayout.razor — @inherits LayoutComponentBase, renders @Body + <FluentUIRequiredFeatures/>, applies the brand ramp via IThemeService.SetThemeAsync in OnAfterRenderAsync guarded by RendererInfo.IsInteractive.
• Shell: components/TimeWarpPage.razor — @inherits BaseComponent (the TimeWarp.State base component → gives it the state Id and render-on-state-change, e.g. the footer activity spinner bound to ActionTrackingState.IsActive). Renders FluentUI FluentLayout zones + brand/search/nav/ footer/ModalController, and <CascadingValue Value=@this>s itself. Parameters: Title, ChildContent, Aside.
• Pages: @inherits BaseComponent, wrap content in <TimeWarpPage Title="…">…</TimeWarpPage>; routing comes from [Page("/route")] in the .razor.cs (the Moxy mixins/Page.mixin). The shell is named TimeWarpPage (not Page) precisely because [Page] is the routing concept.
• Styling of the shell: see the blazor-css-strategy skill — this skill is the structure, that one is the styling (Tier-2 scope-handle .twe-shell).