---
title: 'Parameters'
sidebar:
  order: 2
  title: Parameters
---

<YouTubeCallout id="u32vmGVJY2U" title="Build Better Storybooks with Parameters" />

Parameters are a set of static, named metadata about a story, typically used to control the behavior of Storybook features and addons.

<Callout variant="info">
  Available parameters are listed in the [parameters API reference](../api/parameters.mdx#available-parameters).
</Callout>

For example, let’s customize the backgrounds addon via a parameter. We’ll use `parameters.backgrounds` to define which backgrounds appear in the backgrounds toolbar when a story is selected.

## Story parameters

<IfRenderer renderer="svelte">

 With Svelte, we can set the `parameters` property in the `Story` component to define parameters for a single story using Svelte CSF with the native templating syntax, or we can use the `parameters` key on a CSF named export:
 
</IfRenderer>

<IfRenderer renderer={['angular', 'vue', 'web-components', 'ember', 'html', 'react', 'preact', 'qwik', 'solid' ]}>

  We can set a parameter for a single story with the `parameters` key on a CSF export:

</IfRenderer>

{/* prettier-ignore-start */}

<CodeSnippets path="parameters-in-story.md" />

{/* prettier-ignore-end */}

## Component parameters

<IfRenderer renderer="svelte">
 
  To define parameters for all stories of a component, we can add the `parameters` property in the `defineMeta` function of a Svelte CSF story file, or we can use the `parameters` key on the default CSF export:

</IfRenderer>

<If notRenderer="svelte">

  We can set the parameters for all stories of a component using the `parameters` key on the default CSF export:

</If>

{/* prettier-ignore-start */}

<CodeSnippets path="parameters-in-meta.md" />

{/* prettier-ignore-end */}

## Global parameters

We can also set the parameters for **all stories** via the `parameters` export of your [`.storybook/preview.js|ts`](../configure/index.mdx#configure-story-rendering) file (this is the file where you configure all stories):

{/* prettier-ignore-start */}

<CodeSnippets path="parameters-in-preview.md" />

{/* prettier-ignore-end */}

Setting a global parameter is a common way to configure addons. With backgrounds, you configure the list of backgrounds that every story can render in.

## Rules of parameter inheritance

The way the global, component and story parameters are combined is:

* More specific parameters take precedence (so a story parameter overwrites a component parameter which overwrites a global parameter).
* Parameters are **merged**, so keys are only ever overwritten and never dropped.

The merging of parameters is important. This means it is possible to override a single specific sub-parameter on a per-story basis while retaining most of the parameters defined globally.

If you are defining an API that relies on parameters (e.g., an [**addon**](../addons/index.mdx)) it is a good idea to take this behavior into account.
