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next-mdx-filesystem
TypeScript icon, indicating that this package has built-in type declarations

0.1.1 • Public • Published

  • Notice:

    • Please file any issues on the github repo. I am actively maintaining this and would like to ensure it remains cross compatible and functional.
    • Please DM me on twitter @bensthoughts if you find this software useful, have a suggestion for improvement, or any other feedback about the project. I need a little motivation to continue working on this and your thoughts are important to me.

next-mdx-filesystem

Unit Test Coverage With Jest:

statements branch functions lines

Latest Version Works With:

  • Latest Version: semver
  • Tested With: nextjs version - Should work on most versions
  • Works On: Linux Mac Windows

Do you want to strongly type the shape of you mdx front matter data in your next.js project? This package is for you. Do you want to organize your .mdx articles into folders that represent categories but don't want to write an algorithm that will correctly walk through them all recursively and give you back all of the mdx and directory metadata? This package is for you.

This package provides 2 functions that read the contents of a directory and give you back the data in a format that is easy for react components to consume. While this could be used outside of a next.js project it was designed to be used inside of next.js getStaticProps() and getStaticPaths().

IMPORTANT NOTE: The directory and .mdx file names become a part of the slug path. They need to use a slug friendly separator such as hyphens. Example: 'react-articles' is good 'react articles' is bad. 'my-first-react-article.mdx' is good 'my first react article.mdx' is bad

Table of Contents

Installation

npm install --save next-mdx-filesystem

Configuration

Configuration can be placed into mdx-filesystem.config.json at the root of a project.

It should take the form of

{
  "postsDir": string, // Default "mdx-posts"
  "excludedProdDirs": Array<string>, // Default []
  "dirIndexFile": string, // Default "index.yaml"
}

postsDir is the primary directory where all of your mdx files are stored. It can be a relative path, absolute path, or just the name of the directory if the directory is in the root of the project.

excludedProdDirs is an array of folder names that you would like to exclude from your production build. For example ["drafts"]

dirIndexFile is the name of a special file you can place into any directory to specify the metadata for it. It is a great way to organize your files by category using directories. Currently supported metadata is YAML and includes these fields.

title: string
date: string
description: string | undefined

By default title and date will always be included in the metadata of a directory. If there is no index file in a directory the name of the directory and the last modified date will be used for title and date respectively. Last modified date will take the form yyyy-mm-dd.

Example index.yaml:

title: "Design Articles"
date: "2021-11-07"
description: "Articles about web design."

How to import and Typescript configuration

next-mdx-filesystem allows you to type the metadata that you have within your mdx front matter. To use either of the 2 functions next-mdx-filesystem provides you will need to import it like this...

interface MyFrontMatterShape {
  slug: string;
  title: string;
  date: string;
  description?: string;
  readTime?: number;
}

import { MdxFilesystem } from "next-mdx-filesystem";
const mdxFilesystem = new MdxFilesystem<MyFrontMatterShape>();

The type you place into MdxFilesystem defines the shape of your mdx front matter data. By default your mdx metadata will always include title, date, and slug. If an mdx file fails to provide any of them in its front matter, sensible defaults will be given back to you.

  • title will become the name of the file if none is given.
  • date will become the files last modified date as (yyyy-mm-dd) if none is given.
  • slug is unique in that it cannot be set manually within your front matter and will always be given to you based on the filesystem path to the file.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you give a file a date string it should be in the form yyyy-mm-dd. The order of your .mdx files in the output of getPageData() is most recent article first, and based on dates in the form yyyy-mm-dd. There are plans to allow for custom date formatting in the future but as of now dates are always yyyy-mm-dd.

Function - getSlugs

getSlugs() should be called from within getStaticPaths() inside of [...slug].tsx

getSlugs() is used to tell next.js about all of the routes that exist based on the file structure of your mdx directory. Your mdx directory is the directory you set postsDir to in your mdx-filesystem.config.json file or the default of ./mdx-posts in the root directory of your project.

getSlugs() can be used inside of a next.js catch all route. Specifically it should be used inside of a page named [...slug].tsx. You can read more about catch all routes in the next.js docs here.

Example use in ./pages/blog/[...slug].tsx (goto complete example):

import { MdxFilesystem } from "next-mdx-filesystem";
const mdxFilesystem = new MdxFilesystem<MyFrontMatterShape>();

export const getStaticPaths: GetStaticPaths = async (params) => {
  const slugs = mdxFilesystem.getSlugs();
  return {
    paths: slugs,
    fallback: false,
  };
};

getSlugs returns StaticPath[], an array of StaticPath objects. It can be used directly and easily in getStaticPaths. It is the exact format that next.js expects for paths.

interface StaticPath {
  params: {
    slug: string[];
  };
}

Function - getPageData

This is the meat and potatoes of next-mdx-filesystem. It is the function that will give you all of the data for a directory or mdx file in an easy to consume package for your react components.

When a user navigates to a route that is dynamic next.js will give you the slug for that route within getStaticProps(). Given that there is no way to know if a slug points to a directory or an mdx file prior to calling the function it returns isDirectory: boolean as a property of the returned object.

You can use isDirectory within your react components or pages to conditionally render an .mdx file or a listing of directory contents, depending if the route pointed to a directory or .mdx file. See Return Data Structures for more information.

Arguments and Options - getPageData 

mdxFilesystem.getPageData(args?: {
  slugArray?: string[],
  dirOptions?: {
    returnType?: 'tree' | 'array', // defaults to 'tree'
    shallow?: boolean, // defaults to false
    reSortArray?: boolean, // defaults to true
  },
})

slugArray: is the current path. If called in an index.tsx page you can leave this option out. If called in a [...slug].tsx page {params.slug} can be handed directly to slugArray to request data for that route. {params.slug} is given to you by next.js and will be the slug array for the current route. See examples in Calling getPageData().

dirOptions:

  • returnType: Choose the data structure you want to get back when the route is a directory. Valid options are 'tree' or 'array'. Default is 'tree'.

  • shallow: When true the function returns just the files and directories in the current directory path. When false the function recursively gives you back all directories, sub-directories, and mdx file metadata all the way down the filesystem tree starting at the current directory path. Default is false.

  • reSortArray: When returnType is array this will resort the array of directories alphabetically based on the title. Default is true.

Calling - getPageData

getPageData() should be called from within getStaticProps().

If you are calling it from within an index.tsx, for example ./pages/blog/index.tsx, you can call it without the slugArray property and it will give you back the directory property that contains all of the metadata for the root directory of your mdx files.

Note: The root directory for your .mdx files is the directory configured by postsDir in the configuration file, mdx-filesystem.config.json, or the default ./mdx-posts.

Example use in ./pages/blog/index.tsx (goto complete example):

import { MdxFilesystem } from "next-mdx-filesystem";
const mdxFilesystem = new MdxFilesystem<MyFrontMatterShape>();

export const getStaticProps: GetStaticProps = async () => {
  const { directory } = await mdxFilesystem.getPageData({
    dirOptions: {
      returnType: "array",
      shallow: false,
      reSortArray: true,
    },
  });

  return {
    props: {
      directory,
    },
  };
};

If you are calling getPageData() from within [...slug].tsx for example /pages/blog/[...slug].tsx you can fill in slugArray with params.slug as given by next.js.

Example use in ./pages/blog/[...slug].tsx (goto complete example):

import { serialize } from "next-mdx-remote/serialize";
import { MdxFilesystem } from "next-mdx-filesystem";
const mdxFilesystem = new MdxFilesystem<MyFrontMatterShape>();

export const getStaticProps: GetStaticProps = async ({ params }) => {
  const slugArray = params!.slug as string[];
  const { isDirectory, directory, mdxFile } = await mdxFilesystem.getPageData({
    slugArray,
    dirOptions: {
      returnType: "tree",
      shallow: false,
    },
  });

  if (isDirectory) {
    return {
      props: {
        isDirectory,
        directory,
      },
    };
  } else {
    const mdxSource = await serialize(mdxFile?.content || "");
    const metadata = mdxFile?.metadata || null;
    return {
      props: {
        isDirectory,
        mdxFile: {
          content: mdxSource,
          metadata,
        },
      },
    };
  }
};

Note: The example above uses next-mdx-remote/serialize to serialize the mdx file into something that can be rendered by next.js but you are free to do whatever you want with the data.

Return Data Structures - getPageData

The object returned by getPageData() is...

{
  isDirectory: boolean,
  directory: DirectoryTree<T> | DirectoryData<T>[],
  mdxFile: MdxFileData<T>
}

isDirectory: will be true if the current route points to a directory and will be false if it points to an .mdx file.

directory: If the current route points to a directory path directory will contain either a DirectoryTree<T> or a DirectoryData<T>[] array depending on the returnType that you set in the dirOption object when calling getPageData(). The default is 'tree'.

mdxFile: If the route points to an .mdx file mdxFile will contain an MdxFileData<T> object with the files content and metadata.

T: is the shape of your mdx metadata as given when you imported and created the MdxFilesystem class.

Listed below are the 3 main data structures that may be returned by getPageData().

MdxFileData

If the route points to an mdx file isDirectory will be false and the mdxFile property will contain...

interface MdxFileData<T> {
  fileName: string;
  mtimeDate: string;
  content: string | null;
  metadata: MdxMetadata<T>;
}

type MdxMetadata<T> = {
  slug: string;
  title: string;
  date: string;
} & Partial<T>;

If title is not in the mdx front matter it will be equal to the fileName.

If date is not in the mdx front matter it will be equal to the mtimeDate as yyyy-mm-dd.

slug: is always equal to the slug path and cannot be manually set in mdx front matter.

T: is the shape of your metadata as you defined when you imported next-mdx-filesystem

DirectoryTree

If the route points to a directory and returnType is set to tree (which is default) then isDirectory will be true and the directory property will contain a DirectoryTree<T>.

This is a recursive data structure. You can walk the entire directory tree with it. When dirOptions shallow is set to false (which is default) all sub-directories all the way down the filesystem tree will be included. Otherwise it will just include the first level of sub-directories in the current directory.

type DirectoryTree<T> = {
  dirName: string;
  dirMtimeDate: string;
  dirMetadata: {
    title: string;
    date: string;
    slug: string;
    description: string | null;
  };
  mdxFiles: MdxFileData<T>[]; // all of the mdx files in the current dir
  directories: DirectoryTree<T>[]; // all of the directories in the current dir
};

dirName: the name of the directory as on the filesystem

dirMtimeDate: the last modified date of the directory as on the filesystem

title: the title as given in the index.yaml file stored in the directory or the same as dirName if no title or index.yaml is given.

date: the date as given in the index.yaml file stored in the directory or the same as dirMtimeDate if no date or index.yaml is given.

slug: the slug as would be used on your website, can be used to create a link to a page that displays the contents of the directory.

description: the description as given in the index.yaml file stored in the directory or null if no description or index.yaml is given.

mdxFiles: an array of every .mdx file that is stored in this directory.

directories: an array of DirectoryTree<T>s that are sub-directories within the current directory.

DirectoryData

When the route points to a directory and returnType is set to array getPageData() will return DirectoryData<T>[], an array of data objects representing directories and the .mdx files they hold.

It is convenient for displaying a long list of all directories with links to the .mdx files they hold. You may want to use this return type on your main /blog route.

When the dirOption shallow is false (which is default) the array will contain all directories and sub-directories below the current directory. Otherwise it will be of length 1 and only include the current directory.

When the dirOption reSortArray is true (which is the default) the array of directories is sorted alphabetically by directory name.

interface DirectoryData<T> {
  dirName: string;
  dirMtimeDate: string;
  dirMetadata: {
    title: string;
    date: string;
    slug: string;
    description: string | null;
  };
  mdxFiles: MdxFileData<T>[];
}

dirName: the name of the directory as on the filesystem

dirMtimeDate: the last modified date of the directory as on the filesystem

title: the title as given in the index.yaml file stored in the directory or the same as dirName if no title or index.yaml is given.

date the date as given in the index.yaml file stored in the directory or the same as dirMtimeDate if no date or index.yaml is given.

slug the slug as would be used on your website, can be used to create a link to a page that displays the contents of the directory.

description the description as given in the index.yaml file stored in the directory or null if no description or index.yaml is given.

mdxFiles an array of every .mdx file that is stored in this directory.

Complete Examples

Setup

1. Start a New next.js Project With Typescript

 npx create-next-app@latest --ts

2. Install next-mdx-remote

This will be used to convert the .mdx file content property from a string to react components. Check out the next-mdx-remote package for more details. You can use any MDX converter to convert the content from a string to components, but I have found next-mdx-remote to be simple and effective.

  • In a terminal at the root of the next.js project
npm i --save next-mdx-remote

3. Install next-mdx-filesystem

  • In a terminal at the root of the next.js project
npm i --save next-mdx-filesystem

4. Create a Directory to Hold .mdx Files/Folders

You can place your .mdx files into this directory. You can also create sub-directories in here to hold .mdx files as well.

  • In a terminal at the root of your next.js project
mkdir mdx-posts

5. Create Directory Index Files (Optional)

If you would like custom metadata about each directory to be returned from getPageData() you can place an index.yaml file into each directory. Check out the configuration section for more details.

  • In a terminal inside one of your mdx-posts directories
touch index.yaml
  • Open your favorite editor and edit index.yaml to look like
title: "Design Articles"
date: "2021-11-07"
description: "Articles about web design."

6. Create a Custom Config File (Optional)

If you would like to set some custom options for next-mdx-filesystem you can create a config file. Check out the configuration section for more details.

  • In a terminal at the root of your next.js project
touch mdx-filesystem.config.json
  • Open your favorite editor and edit mdx-filesystem.config.json to look like
{
  "postsDir": "./my-custom-folder",
  "excludedProdDirs": ["drafts"],
  "dirIndexFile": "index.yaml"
}

File Structure

After setting up a fresh next.js project I have...

  • Created some basic .mdx files and folders in ./mdx-posts
  • Added some index.yaml files to the folders to store the metadata for each folder.
  • Created ./interfaces/index.ts, ./pages/blog/index.tsx, and ./pages/blog/[...slug].tsx.

The folder structure should look similar to the following:

├── interfaces
│   └── index.ts
├── mdx-posts
│   ├── design
│   │   ├── design-article-1.mdx
│   │   ├── design-article-2.mdx
│   │   └── index.yaml
│   ├── drafts
│   │   ├── draft-1.mdx
│   │   ├── draft-2.mdx
│   │   ├── index.yaml
│   │   └── second-level
│   │       ├── second-level-article.mdx
│   │       ├── index.yaml
│   │       └── third-level
│   │           ├── index.yaml
│   │           └── third-level-article.mdx
│   ├── react-articles
│   │   ├── index.yaml
│   │   ├── react-article-1.mdx
│   │   ├── react-article-2.mdx
│   │   └── react-article-3.mdx
│   └── index.yaml
│   └── root-article-1.mdx
│   └── root-article-2.mdx
├── next.config.js
├── next-env.d.ts
├── package.json
├── package-lock.json
├── pages
│   ├── _app.tsx
│   ├── blog
│   │   ├── index.tsx
│   │   └── [...slug].tsx
│   └── index.tsx
├── public
│   ├── favicon.ico
│   └── vercel.svg
├── README.md
├── styles
│   ├── globals.css
│   └── Home.module.css
└── tsconfig.json

File To Route Mapping

Directories and .mdx files will map to next.js routes like below...

  • ./mdx-posts/ --> http://localhost:3000/blog
  • ./mdx-posts/root-article-1.mdx --> http://localhost:3000/blog/root-article-1
  • ./mdx-posts/drafts --> http://localhost:3000/blog/drafts
  • ./mdx-posts/drafts/draft-1.mdx --> http://localhost:3000/blog/drafts/draft-1

Example Files

After filling in the code for ./interfaces/index.ts, ./pages/blog/index.tsx, and ./pages/blog/[...slug].tsx you will be able to run npm run dev and navigate to http://localhost:3000/blog to see a list of every article all the way down the directory tree.

You will also be able to navigate to a specific article or directory. For example the article at http://localhost:3000/blog/react-articles/react-article-1 or the directory at http://localhost:3000/blog/drafts/second-level

The following shows the code for some of the files that have been added to the starter next.js project.

Interface

In ./interfaces/index.ts I have:

export interface BlogArticleMetaData {
  slug: string;
  title: string;
  date: string;
  description?: string;
  readTime?: number;
  tags?: string[];
}

Take note that description, readTime, and tags are possibly undefined. All user given metadata is returned to you as a Partial so that you are aware of the fact that it is possible to forget to include a piece of metadata in an .mdx file. This is to help prevent rendering errors. slug, title, and date are the only metadata guaranteed to exist because sensible defaults will be filled in when they are missing.

Blog Article List Page

In ./pages/blog/index.tsx I have:

import React from "react";
import type { GetStaticProps } from "next";
import Link from "next/link";
import { BlogArticleMetaData } from "../../interfaces";

import { MdxFilesystem, DirectoryData } from "next-mdx-filesystem";
const mdxFilesystem = new MdxFilesystem<BlogArticleMetaData>();

export const getStaticProps: GetStaticProps = async () => {
  const { directory } = await mdxFilesystem.getPageData({
    dirOptions: {
      returnType: "array",
      shallow: false,
      reSortArray: true,
    },
  });

  return {
    props: {
      directory,
    },
  };
};

interface BlogArticleListProps {
  directory: DirectoryData<BlogArticleMetaData>[];
}

export default function BlogArticleListPage({
  directory,
}: BlogArticleListProps) {
  return (
    <section
      style={{
        display: "flex",
        flexDirection: "column",
        alignItems: "center",
        justifyContent: "center",
        width: "100%",
      }}
    >
      <h1>Array of DirectoryData:</h1>
      {directory.map((dir) => (
        <React.Fragment key={dir.dirMetadata.title}>
          <h2>
            <span className="text-icon-secondary">[&nbsp;</span>
            {dir.dirMetadata.title}
            <span className="text-icon-secondary">&nbsp;]</span>
          </h2>
          <div>
            {dir.mdxFiles.map((mdxFile) => (
              <div key={mdxFile.fileName}>
                <span style={{ color: "blue", textDecoration: "underline" }}>
                  <Link href={`/blog/${mdxFile.metadata.slug}`}>
                    {mdxFile.metadata.title}
                  </Link>
                </span>
              </div>
            ))}
          </div>
        </React.Fragment>
      ))}
    </section>
  );
}

Blog Article Page

In ./pages/blog/[...slug].tsx I have:

import { GetStaticPaths, GetStaticProps } from "next";
import Link from "next/link";
import { serialize } from "next-mdx-remote/serialize";
import { MDXRemote, MDXRemoteSerializeResult } from "next-mdx-remote";

import { BlogArticleMetaData } from "../../interfaces";
import { MdxFilesystem, DirectoryTree, MdxMetadata } from "next-mdx-filesystem";
const mdxFilesystem = new MdxFilesystem<BlogArticleMetaData>();

export const getStaticPaths: GetStaticPaths = (params) => {
  const slugs = mdxFilesystem.getSlugs();
  return {
    paths: slugs,
    fallback: false,
  };
};

export const getStaticProps: GetStaticProps = async ({ params }) => {
  if (!params) {
    throw new Error(`No params in getStaticProps: ${params}`);
  }

  if (!params.slug) {
    throw new Error(`No slug on params object: ${params.slug}`);
  }

  const slugArray = params.slug as string[];
  const { isDirectory, directory, mdxFile } = await mdxFilesystem.getPageData({
    slugArray,
    dirOptions: {
      returnType: "tree",
      shallow: true,
    },
  });

  if (isDirectory) {
    return {
      props: {
        isDirectory,
        directory,
      },
    };
  } else {
    const mdxSource = await serialize(mdxFile?.content ? mdxFile.content : "");
    const metadata = mdxFile?.metadata || null;
    return {
      props: {
        isDirectory,
        mdxFile: {
          content: mdxSource,
          metadata,
        },
      },
    };
  }
};

interface BlogArticlePageProps {
  isDirectory: boolean;
  directory?: DirectoryTree<BlogArticleMetaData>;
  mdxFile?: {
    content: MDXRemoteSerializeResult;
    metadata: MdxMetadata<BlogArticleMetaData>;
  };
}

export default function BlogArticlePage({
  isDirectory,
  directory,
  mdxFile,
}: BlogArticlePageProps) {
  if (isDirectory && directory) {
    const { dirMetadata, directories, mdxFiles } = directory;
    return (
      <section>
        <h2>Current Directory Metadata:</h2>
        <ul>
          <li>Dir Name: {directory.dirName}</li>
          <li>Dir Modified Date: {directory.dirMtimeDate}</li>
          <li>index.yaml title: {dirMetadata.title}</li>
          <li>index.yaml date: {dirMetadata.date}</li>
          {dirMetadata.description && (
            <li>index.yaml description: {dirMetadata.description}</li>
          )}
        </ul>
        <h2>Directories Under This Directory:</h2>
        <ol>
          {directories.map((dir) => (
            <li key={dir.dirName}>
              <span style={{ color: "blue", textDecoration: "underline" }}>
                <Link href={`/blog/${dir.dirMetadata.slug}`}>
                  {dir.dirMetadata.title}
                </Link>
              </span>
              {dir.dirMetadata.description && (
                <span>&nbsp;-&nbsp;{dir.dirMetadata.description}</span>
              )}
            </li>
          ))}
        </ol>
        <h2>Mdx Files:</h2>
        <ul>
          {mdxFiles.map((mdxFile) => (
            <li key={mdxFile.fileName}>
              <span style={{ color: "blue", textDecoration: "underline" }}>
                <Link href={`/blog/${mdxFile.metadata.slug}`}>
                  {mdxFile.metadata.title}
                </Link>
              </span>
              {mdxFile.metadata.description && (
                <span>&nbsp;-&nbsp;{mdxFile.metadata.description}</span>
              )}
            </li>
          ))}
        </ul>
      </section>
    );
  } else if (mdxFile) {
    const { content, metadata } = mdxFile;
    return (
      <article>
        <h1>Current Article Metadata</h1>
        <ul>
          <li>Title: {metadata.title}</li>
          <li>Date: {metadata.date}</li>
          {metadata.readTime && <li>Read Time: {metadata.readTime}</li>}
          {metadata.description && <li>Description: {metadata.description}</li>}
          {metadata.tags && (
            <li>
              Tags:{" "}
              <ul>
                {metadata.tags.map((tag) => (
                  <li key={tag}>{tag}</li>
                ))}
              </ul>
            </li>
          )}
        </ul>
        <hr />
        <MDXRemote {...content} />
      </article>
    );
  }
}

Example .mdx File

An example of a .mdx file ./mdx-posts/root-article-1.mdx is

---
title: "The Ultimate Perfect Dark Solution"
description: "Create the ultimate perfect dark mode in Next.js with Typescript"
date: "2021-08-29"
readTime: 30
tags:
  - "styled"
  - "react"
  - "@emotion"
  - "css"
  - "Typescript"
---

## The ultimate perfect dark solution

Setting out to build the ultimate dark mode was a...

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npm i next-mdx-filesystem

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