PayloadCMS — Hooks

Hooks let you inject logic at every step of a document's lifecycle. They live on collections, globals, and individual fields. Use them for slug generation, audit logs, cache invalidation, side effects (email, webhooks), and computed values — without forking the admin or the API.

Hook Categories

Where	Available hooks
Collection	`beforeOperation`, `beforeValidate`, `beforeChange`, `afterChange`, `beforeRead`, `afterRead`, `beforeDelete`, `afterDelete`, `afterOperation`, `afterError`, plus auth-only: `beforeLogin`, `afterLogin`, `afterLogout`, `afterForgotPassword`, `afterMe`, `afterRefresh`
Global	`beforeValidate`, `beforeChange`, `afterChange`, `beforeRead`, `afterRead`
Field	`beforeValidate`, `beforeChange`, `afterChange`, `afterRead`

Every hook is an array — Payload runs them in order. Plugins append to these arrays; never overwrite.

Hook Argument Shape

Every collection hook receives roughly the same args (precise shape varies per hook). Common keys: