Next Export API

Installation

yarn add next-export-api

or

npm install next-export-api

Ensure to install it as a production dependency, not a development one.

Add next-export-api to the build script. You can use postbuild if you are using build on the package.json:

 {
   "name": "example",
   "scripts": {
     "build": "next build && next export",
+    "postbuild": "next-export-api",
     "dev": "next dev",
     "start": "next start"
   },
   "dependencies": {
     "next": "9.5.5",
     "react": "16.14.0",
     "react-dom": "16.14.0"
   }
 }

Configure netlify.toml to define functions directory:

[build]
  command = "yarn build"
  publish = "out"
  functions = "out/api"

Both publish and functions above are configurable, and will be respected by next-export-api command.

Please check the example folder for a ready to deploy sample project.

Motivation

Over a year ago Next.js released version 9 with API Routes support. Netlify has also long supported their vision of serverless functions. The issue? They have very diverging APIs. Next.js even states, in a caveats section, it's API Routes do not work with next export projects - the most straightforward way of deploying Next.js projects on Netlify. However, with a bit of adaptation from generated API Routes entrypoints files, it's possible to make them capable of running on Netlify functions environment.

Similar projects

This project is heavily inspired by...

• next-on-netlify
• next-aws-lambda
• serverless-http

The difference to these projects is next-export-api focuses in allowing the use of API Routs on a Next.js Static HTML Exported project.

How does it work

Similarly to next-on-netlify, this project takes advantage of Next.js own building system, and operates on it's generated code. As for API Routes, Next.js does generate a self-contained file for each /pages/api entrypoint, meaning we can import those files or of the foreseen context of a Next.js server.

The process is like the following:

1. Next.js builds into the .next directory;

2. Next.js exports static site into (configurable) out directory;

3. next-export-api reads page manifests from the .next build, and...

   1. Creates one file for each API route under out/api

      These files are thin wrappers over Next.js original ones, only adapting for execution on AWS using well supported serverless-http.

   2. Creates _redirects rules for each of the API routes above, mapping /api/* calls to /.netlify/functions/* as expected by Netlify