How to setup Contentlayer in your Next.js app?
Tags: nextjs, markdown, webdev, tutorial
Published: 2021-10-22 10:44:00

> Note: Contentlayer is still in development and some APIs might change!

## What is Contentlayer?

[Contentlayer](https://www.contentlayer.dev) turns your content into data - making it super easy to import MD(X) and CMS content in your app.

## Automatic Setup

The easiest way to create a new Next.js app with Contentlayer is by using [official Next.js example](https://github.com/vercel/next.js/tree/canary/examples/with-contentlayer), which sets up everything automatically for you. To create a project, run:

```bash
npx create-next-app --example with-contentlayer with-contentlayer-app
# or
yarn create next-app --example with-contentlayer with-contentlayer-app
```

After the installation is complete:

- Run `npm run dev` or `yarn dev` to start the development server on `http://localhost:3000`.
- Visit `http://localhost:3000` to view your application.

## Manual Setup

### Install Contentlayer in your Next.js app

```
npm install contentlayer next-contentlayer
# or
yarn add contentlayer next-contentlayer
```

### Add your Contentlayer config

Create `contentlayer.config.js` file at the root of the project with the following code.

```js
import { defineDocumentType, makeSource } from "contentlayer/source-files";

const Post = defineDocumentType(() => ({
  name: "Post",
  filePathPattern: `**/*.md`,
  contentType: "markdown",
  fields: {
    title: { type: "string", required: true },
    date: { type: "string", required: true },
  },
  computedFields: {
    slug: {
      type: "string",
      resolve: (doc) => doc._raw.sourceFileName.replace(/\.md/, ""),
    },
  },
}));

export default makeSource({
  contentDirPath: "posts",
  documentTypes: [Post],
});
```

### Set up Next.js plugin in `next.config.js` (optional: enables live-reload and build setup)

```js
const { withContentlayer } = require("next-contentlayer");

module.exports = withContentlayer({
  // Your Next.js config...
});
```

### Add a `jsconfig.json` file

```json
{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "baseUrl": ".",
    "paths": {
      "contentlayer/generated": ["./.contentlayer/generated"]
    }
  },
  "include": [".contentlayer/generated"]
}
```

In case you are using TypeScript in your project you already have a `tsconfig.json` to which you will add these lines of code to.

```diff
{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "baseUrl": ".",
    "paths": {
       // These option allow you to configure module aliases.
       // So you will import contentlayer generated content from "contentlayer/generated" instead of "./.contentlayer/generated"
+      "contentlayer/generated": ["./.contentlayer/generated"]
    }
  },
  "include": [
    "next-env.d.ts",
    "**/*.ts",
    "**/*.tsx",
+    ".contentlayer/generated"
  ],
}
```

### Add some posts

1. Add `posts` folder at the root of your app(Where your content will live).
2. Add `.md` files(e.g. `pre-rendering.md`).
3. Add your content(You can write anything you want, This is just an example).

```md
---
title: "Two Forms of Pre-rendering"
date: "2020-01-01"
---

Next.js has two forms of pre-rendering: **Static Generation** and **Server-side Rendering**. The difference is in **when** it generates the HTML for a page.

- **Static Generation** is the pre-rendering method that generates the HTML at **build time**. The pre-rendered HTML is then _reused_ on each request.
- **Server-side Rendering** is the pre-rendering method that generates the HTML on **each request**.

Importantly, Next.js lets you **choose** which pre-rendering form to use for each page. You can create a "hybrid" Next.js app by using Static Generation for most pages and using Server-side Rendering for others.
```

### Fetch and display your posts

```jsx
import Link from "next/link";
import { allPosts } from "contentlayer/generated";
import { pick } from "@contentlayer/client";

export default function Home({ posts }) {
  return (
    <section>
      <ul>
        {posts.map(({ slug, date, title }) => (
          <li key={slug}>
            <Link href={`/posts/${slug}`}>
              <a>{title}</a>
            </Link>
            <br />
            <small>{date}</small>
          </li>
        ))}
      </ul>
    </section>
  );
}

// Statically fetch all posts
export async function getStaticProps() {
  const posts = allPosts.map((post) => pick(post, ["title", "date", "slug"]));

  return { props: { posts } };
}
```

### Create dynamic routes for each post

In this section, you should know how [dynamic routes](https://nextjs.org/docs/routing/dynamic-routes) works in Next.js,

Add `posts/[slug].js` inside `pages` folder.

```jsx
import { allPosts } from 'contentlayer/generated'

export default function Post({ post }) {
  return (
    <article>
      <h1>{post.title}</h1>
      <div>{post.date}</div>

      <div dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: post.body.html }} />
    </article>
  )
}

export async function getStaticPaths() {
  return {
    paths: allPosts.map((p) => ({ params: { slug: p.slug } })),
    fallback: false,
  }
}

// Statically fetch post by slug
export async function getStaticProps({ params }) {
  const post = allPosts.find((post) => post.slug === params?.slug)

  return { props: { post } }
}
```

Now we are done 🎉, Check [http://localhost:3000](http://localhost:3000) to see the results!

## Conclusion

In this guide, We learned about how we can integrate Next.js with Contentlayer,
As well as how we can display all posts and post by slug.

An online demo of the application that we built is hosted on [Vercel](https://nextjs-contentlayer-guide.vercel.app)
and the code is available on [GitHub](https://github.com/imadatyatalah/nextjs-contentlayer-guide) for TypeScript version check out this [GitHub branch](https://github.com/imadatyatalah/nextjs-contentlayer-guide/tree/typescript).

Thanks to [Johannes Schickling](https://twitter.com/schickling) for providing this really great tool!
Make sure to [contact me](https://twitter.com/ImadAtyat) if you have any questions.