What causes "useCreate mutation requires a resource" in marmelab/react-admin?

Pass the resource explicitly: mutate('posts', { data: {...} })

marmelab/react-admin · error · Error

useCreate mutation requires a resource

Error message

useCreate mutation requires a resource

What it means

useCreate's internal mutation function validates that a resource string was provided before calling dataProvider.create. Since the resource normally comes from the hook argument or useResourceContext, calling mutate without a resolvable resource makes creation impossible.

Source

Thrown at packages/ra-core/src/dataProvider/useCreate.ts:112

        mutationMode = 'pessimistic',
        getMutateWithMiddlewares,
        mutationFn: customMutationFn,
        onSettled,
        ...mutationOptions
    } = options;

    const dataProviderCreate = useEvent((resource: string, params) =>
        dataProvider.create<RecordType, ResultRecordType>(
            resource,
            params as CreateParams<RecordType>
        )
    );
    const customMutationFnWithDataProviderResult = async (
        resource: string | undefined,
        params: Omit<UseCreateMutateParams<RecordType>, 'resource'>
    ) => {
        if (resource == null) {
            throw new Error('useCreate mutation requires a resource');
        }
        if (params.data == null) {
            throw new Error(
                'useCreate mutation requires a non-empty data object'
            );
        }
        if (customMutationFn == null) {
            return dataProviderCreate(resource, params);
        }

        return {
            data: await customMutationFn({ resource, ...params }),
        };
    };

    const [mutate, mutationResult] = useMutationWithMutationMode<
        MutationError,
        CreateResult<ResultRecordType>,

View on GitHub (pinned to 051f511bb0)

Solutions

Pass the resource explicitly: mutate('posts', { data: {...} })
Call useCreate('posts') with a resource argument
Ensure the component is rendered within a <Resource> / matched route so useResourceContext resolves

Example fix

// before
const { mutate } = useCreate();
mutate({ data: { title: 'Hi' } });
// after
const { mutate } = useCreate('posts');
mutate('posts', { data: { title: 'Hi' } });

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

const resource = resourceFromContext ?? 'posts';
if (resource == null) {
  throw new Error('useCreate requires a resource; pass one to the hook or mutate()');
}

Type guard

const hasResource = (r: string | undefined | null): r is string => typeof r === 'string' && r.length > 0;

Try / catch

try {
  await mutate('posts', { data });
} catch (e) {
  if (e.message === 'useCreate mutation requires a resource') {
    // fall back to explicit resource or surface a config error
  }
  throw e;
}

Prevention

Always pass the resource as the first hook argument instead of relying on context
TypeScript: type the resource parameter as string, not string | undefined
Render mutation components inside a Resource route or pass resource as a prop

When it happens

Trigger: Calling the mutate/callback returned by useCreate() (e.g. mutate({ data })) when useCreate was called with no resource and no resource is available from the routing/context.

Common situations: Using useCreate() outside of a resource context (not inside a Resource route) and omitting the resource argument; typos in resource naming after refactors.

Understand the failure class

Background: "missing required argument" and "the following required arguments were not provided": what required-argument errors mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of marmelab/react-admin@051f511bb0 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c9f8c85fa73f1d8b. Report an issue: GitHub.