A zero configuration Nextjs 9.0 serverless component with full feature parity.
- Motivation
- Design principles
- Features
- Getting started
- Lambda@Edge configuration
- Custom domain name
- Custom CloudFront configuration
- Public directory caching
- AWS Permissions
- Architecture
- Inputs
- FAQ
Since Nextjs 8.0, serverless mode was introduced which provides a new low level API which projects like this can use to deploy onto different cloud providers. This project is a better version of the serverless plugin which focuses on addressing core issues like next 9 support, better development experience, the 200 CloudFormation resource limit and performance.
- Zero configuration by default
There is no configuration needed. You can extend defaults based on your application needs.
- Feature parity with nextjs
Users of this component should be able to use nextjs development tooling, aka next dev
. It is the component's job to deploy your application ensuring parity with all of next's features we know and love.
- Fast deployments / no CloudFormation resource limits.
With a simplified architecture and no use of CloudFormation, there are no limits to how many pages you can have in your application, plus deployment times are very fast! with the exception of CloudFront propagation times of course.
- Server side rendered pages at the Edge. Pages that need server side compute to render are hosted on Lambda@Edge. The component takes care of all the routing for you so there is no configuration needed. Because rendering happens at the CloudFront edge locations latency is very low!
- API Routes. Similarly to the server side rendered pages, API requests are also served from the CloudFront edge locations using Lambda@Edge.
- Dynamic pages / route segments.
- Automatic prerendering. Statically optimised pages compiled by next are served from CloudFront edge locations with low latency and cost.
- Client assets.
Nextjs build assets
/_next/*
served from CloudFront. - User static / public folders. Any of your assets in the static or public folders are uploaded to S3 and served from CloudFront automatically.
- getStaticProps / getStaticPaths / getServerSideProps. Currently in progress. See this RFC for updates.
Add your next application to the serverless.yml:
# serverless.yml
myNextApplication:
component: serverless-next.js@{version_here} # it is recommended you pin the latest stable version of serverless-next.js
Set your aws credentials in a .env
file (or set them as environment variables):
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=accesskey
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=sshhh
Set next.js build target to serverless
:
// next.config.js
module.exports = {
target: "serverless"
};
And simply deploy:
$ serverless
In most cases you wouldn't want to use CloudFront's distribution domain to access your application. Instead, you can specify a custom domain name.
You can use any domain name but you must be using AWS Route53 for your DNS hosting. To migrate DNS records from an existing domain follow the instructions here. The requirements to use a custom domain name:
- Route53 must include a hosted zone for your domain (e.g.
mydomain.com
) with a set of nameservers. - You must update the nameservers listed with your domain name registrar (e.g. namecheap, godaddy, etc.) with those provided for your new hosted zone.
The serverless next.js component will automatically generate an SSL certificate and create a new record to point to your CloudFront distribution.
# serverless.yml
myNextApplication:
component: serverless-next.js
inputs:
domain: "example.com" # sub-domain defaults to www
You can also configure a subdomain
:
# serverless.yml
myNextApplication:
component: serverless-next.js
inputs:
domain: ["sub", "example.com"] # [ sub-domain, domain ]
To specify your own CloudFront inputs, just add any aws-cloudfront inputs under cloudfront
:
# serverless.yml
myNextApplication:
component: serverless-next.js
inputs:
cloudfront:
# this is the default cache behaviour of the cloudfront distribution
# the origin-request edge lambda associated to this cache behaviour does the pages server side rendering
defaults:
forward:
headers:
[
CloudFront-Is-Desktop-Viewer,
CloudFront-Is-Mobile-Viewer,
CloudFront-Is-Tablet-Viewer,
]
# this is the cache behaviour for next.js api pages
api:
ttl: 10
# you can set other cache behaviours like "defaults" above that can handle server side rendering
# but more specific for a subset of your next.js pages
/blog/*:
ttl: 1000
forward:
cookies: "all"
queryString: false
/about:
ttl: 3000
# you can add custom origins to the cloudfront distribution
origins:
- url: /static
pathPatterns:
/wp-content/*:
ttl: 10
- url: https://old-static.com
pathPatterns:
/old-static/*:
ttl: 10
This is particularly useful for caching any of your next.js pages at CloudFront's edge locations. See this for an example application with custom cache configuration.
By default, common image formats(gif|jpe?g|jp2|tiff|png|webp|bmp|svg|ico
) under /public
or /static
folders
have a one-year Cache-Control
policy applied(public, max-age=31536000, must-revalidate
).
You may customize either the Cache-Control
header value
and the regex of which files to test
, with publicDirectoryCache
:
myNextApplication:
component: serverless-next.js
inputs:
publicDirectoryCache:
value: public, max-age=604800
test: /\.(gif|jpe?g|png|txt|xml)$/i
value
must be a valid Cache-Control
policy and test
must be a valid regex
of the types of files you wish to test.
If you don't want browsers to cache assets from the public directory, you can disable this:
myNextApplication:
component: serverless-next.js
inputs:
publicDirectoryCache: false
By default the Lambda@Edge functions run using AWSLambdaBasicExecutionRole which only allows uploading logs to CloudWatch. If you need permissions beyond this, like for example access to DynamoDB or any other AWS resource you will need your own custom policy arn:
# serverless.yml
myNextApplication:
component: serverless-next.js
inputs:
policy: "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:policy/MyCustomPolicy"
Make sure you add CloudWatch log permissions to your custom policy.
Both default and api edge lambdas will be assigned 512mb of memory by default. This value can be altered by assigning a number to the memory
input
# serverless.yml
myNextApplication:
component: serverless-next.js
inputs:
memory: 1024
Values for default and api lambdas can be separately defined by assigning memory
to an object like so:
# serverless.yml
myNextApplication:
component: serverless-next.js
inputs:
memory:
defaultLambda: 1024
apiLambda: 2048
The same pattern can be followed for specifying the Node.js runtime (nodejs12.x by default):
# serverless.yml
myNextApplication:
component: serverless-next.js
inputs:
runtime:
defaultLambda: "nodejs10.x"
apiLambda: "nodejs10.x"
Similarly, the timeout by default is 10 seconds. To customise you can:
# serverless.yml
myNextApplication:
component: serverless-next.js
inputs:
timeout:
defaultLambda: 20
apiLambda: 15
Note the maximum timeout allowed for Lambda@Edge is 30 seconds. See https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/lambda-requirements-limits.html
You can also set a custom name for default and api lambdas - if not the default is set by the aws-lambda serverless component to the resource id:
# serverless.yml
myNextApplication:
component: serverless-next.js
inputs:
name:
defaultLambda: fooDefaultLambda
apiLambda: fooApiLambda
Four Cache Behaviours are created in CloudFront.
The first two _next/*
and static/*
forward the requests to S3.
The third is associated to a lambda function which is responsible for handling three types of requests.
-
Server side rendered page. Any page that defines
getInitialProps
method will be rendered at this level and the response is returned immediately to the user. -
Statically optimised page. Requests to pages that were pre-compiled by next to HTML are forwarded to S3.
-
Public resources. Requests to root level resources like
/robots.txt
,/favicon.ico
,/manifest.json
, etc. These are forwarded to S3.
The reason why 2. and 3. have to go through Lambda@Edge first is because the routes don't conform to a pattern like _next/*
or static/*
. Also, one cache behaviour per route is a bad idea because CloudFront only allows 25 per distribution.
The fourth cache behaviour handles next API requests api/*
.
Name | Type | Default Value | Description |
---|---|---|---|
domain | Array |
null |
For example ['admin', 'portal.com'] |
bucketName | string |
null |
Custom bucket name where static assets are stored. By default is autogenerated. |
nextConfigDir | string |
./ |
Directory where your application next.config.js file is. This input is useful when the serverless.yml is not in the same directory as the next app. Note: nextConfigDir should be set if next.config.js distDir is used |
nextStaticDir | string |
./ |
If your static or public directory is not a direct child of nextConfigDir this is needed |
runtime | number|object |
nodejs12.x |
When assigned a value, both the default and api lambdas will be assigned the runtime defined in the value. When assigned to an object, values for the default and api lambdas can be separately defined |
memory | number|object |
512 |
When assigned a number, both the default and api lambdas will be assigned memory of that value. When assigned to an object, values for the default and api lambdas can be separately defined |
timeout | number|object |
10 |
Same as above |
name | string|object |
/ | When assigned a string, both the default and api lambdas will assigned name of that value. When assigned to an object, values for the default and api lambdas can be separately defined |
build | boolean|object |
true |
When true builds and deploys app, when false assume the app has been built and uses the .next .serverless_nextjs directories in nextConfigDir to deploy. If an object is passed build allows for overriding what script gets called and with what arguments. |
build.cmd | string |
node_modules/.bin/next |
Build command |
build.args | Array|string |
['build'] |
Arguments to pass to the build |
build.cwd | string |
./ |
Override the current working directory |
build.enabled | boolean |
true |
Same as passing build:false but from within the config |
build.env | object |
{} |
Add additional environment variables to the script |
cloudfront | object |
{} |
Inputs to be passed to aws-cloudfront |
publicDirectoryCache | boolean|object |
true |
Customize the public /static folder asset caching policy. Assigning an object with value and/or test lets you customize the caching policy and the types of files being cached. Assigning false disables caching |
useServerlessTraceTarget | boolean |
false |
Use the experimental-serverless-trace target to build your next app. This is the same build target that Vercel Now uses. See this RFC for details. |
Custom inputs can be configured like this:
myNextApp:
component: serverless-next.js
inputs:
bucketName: my-bucket
Make sure your serverless.yml
uses the serverless-components
format. serverless components differ from the original serverless framework, even though they are both accessible via the same CLI.
✅ Do
# serverless.yml
myNextApp:
component: serverless-next.js
myTable:
component: serverless/aws-dynamodb
inputs:
name: Customers
# other components
❌ Don't
# serverless.yml
provider:
name: aws
runtime: nodejs10.x
region: eu-west-1
myNextApp:
component: serverless-next.js
Resources: ...
Note how the correct yaml doesn't declare a provider
, Resources
, etc.
For deploying, don't run serverless deploy
. Simply run serverless
and that deploys your components declared in the serverless.yml
file.
For more information about serverless components go here.
Should I use the serverless-plugin or this component?
Users are encouraged to use this component instead of the serverless-plugin
. This component was built and designed using lessons learned from the serverless plugin.
See examples/dynamodb-crud
for an example Todo application that interacts with DynamoDB.
You need to commit your application state in source control. That is the files under the .serverless
directory.
The serverless team is currently working on remote state storage so this won't be necessary in the future.
Serverless next.js is regionless. By design, serverless-next.js
applications will be deployed across the globe to every CloudFront edge location. The lambda might look like is only deployed to us-east-1
but behind the scenes, it is replicated to every other region.
See the sample below for an advanced build
setup that includes passing additional arguments and environment variables to the build.
# serverless.yml
myDatabase:
component: MY_DATABASE_COMPNENT
myNextApp:
component: serverless-next.js
build:
args: ["build", "custom/path/to/pages"]
env:
DATABASE_URL: ${myDatabase.databaseUrl}
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