Nuxt.js

This guide shows you how to deploy a Nuxt.js application to Edgio. If you run into any issues please consult the Troubleshooting section.

Example SSR Site

This Nuxt.js example app uses server-side rendering and prefetching to provide lightening-fast transitions between pages.

Try the Nuxt.js SSR Site Example

View the Code

Example ISG Site

This Nuxt.js example app uses ISG (Incremental Static Generation) to provide lightening-fast transitions between pages.

Try the Nuxt.js ISG Site Example

View the Code

Connector

This framework has a connector developed for Edgio. See Connectors for more information.

View the Connector Code

System Requirements

Install Node.js 14.19.0

Deploying requires an account on Edgio. Sign up here for free.

Install the Edgio CLI

If you have not already done so, install the Edgio CLI.

Bash
npm i -g @edgio/cli

Creating a new Nuxt app

If you don’t already have a nuxt.js application, you can create one using:

1npm create nuxt-app my-nuxt-app

Nuxt’s create module will ask you a series of questions to configure your app. Make sure you answer as follows:

For Choose rendering mode select Universal (SSR)
Your answers to the other questions should not matter for the purposes of this guide.

Adding Edgio to an existing Nuxt app

To prepare your Nuxt.js application for Edgio:

In the existing nuxt.config.js configuration, add “@edgio/nuxt/module” to buildModules:

JavaScript
// nuxt.config.js

module.exports = {
  ...
  buildModules: [['@edgio/nuxt/module', { edgioSourceMaps: true }]],
  ...
}

Options:

edgioSourceMaps: true|false: when true, the serverless build includes sourcemap files which make debugging easier when tailing the server logs in the Edgio Developer console. It also increases the serverless bundle size, which may push your deployments over the 50MB (compressed) limit.

We noticed some performance issues related to sourcemaps being loaded in our Serverless infrastructure, which may result in 539 project timeout errors. In case you encounter such errors, please try again with sourcemaps disabled. This document will be updated once the problem is fully resolved.

Run edgio init to configure your project for Edgio.

1edgio init

The edgio init command will automatically add all the required dependencies and files to your project. These include:

The @edgio/core package
The @edgio/nuxt package
The @edgio/vue package
edgio.config.js - Contains various configuration options for Edgio.
routes.js - A default routes file that sends all requests to nuxt.js. You can update this file to add caching or proxy some URLs to a different origin as described later in this guide.
sw/service-worker.js - A service worker that provides static asset and API prefetching.

This command will also update your package.json with the following changes:

Moves all packages in dependencies to devDependencies except those listed in the modules property of nuxt.config.js.
Adds @nuxt/core to dependencies
Adds several scripts to run the available edgio commands

As an example, here’s the original package.json from Nuxt’s create step:

JSON
{
  "name": "my-nuxt-app",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "My remarkable Nuxt.js project",
  "author": "Techy Ted",
  "private": true,
  "scripts": {
    "dev": "nuxt",
    "build": "nuxt build",
    "start": "nuxt start",
    "generate": "nuxt generate"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "@edgio/cli": "^2.0.0",
    "@edgio/core": "^2.0.0",
    "@edgio/nuxt": "^2.0.0",
    "nuxt": "^2.0.0"
  },
  "devDependencies": {}
}

And here is the package.json after modifications by edgio init:

JSON
{
  "name": "my-nuxt-app",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "My remarkable Nuxt.js project",
  "author": "Techy Ted",
  "private": true,
  "scripts": {
    "dev": "edgio run",
    "build": "edgio build",
    "start": "edgio run",
    "prod": "edgio run --production",
    "generate": "nuxt generate"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "@nuxt/core": "^2.14.2"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@edgio/cli": "^2.0.0",
    "@edgio/core": "^2.0.0",
    "@edgio/nuxt": "^2.0.0",
    "@edgio/vue": "^2.0.0",
    "dotenv": "^8.2.0",
    "nuxt": "^2.0.0",
    "serverless": "^1.64.0",
    "serverless-dotenv-plugin": "^2.3.2",
    "serverless-offline": "^5.14.1"
  }
}

Run the Nuxt.js app locally on Edgio

Run the Nuxt.js app with the command:

1npm run edgio:dev

Load the site: http://127.0.0.1:3000

modules vs buildModules

Nuxt does not bundle packages listed in the modules property of nuxt.config.js when building your app for production. This can lead to an increased bundle size and slow down server-side rendering. Most Nuxt modules can be moved to buildModules. We recommend the following to maximize performance of server-side rendering in the cloud:

Move all entries from modules to buildModules in nuxt.config.js
Move all corresponding packages from dependencies to devDependencies in package.json
Run yarn install or npm install to update your lock file.

Doing so will exclude these modules from your production deployment and keep the bundle size as small as possible.

Routing

The next few sections of this guide explain how Edgio interacts with Nuxt’s routing, which is important if you are migrating an existing application. If you just created a new nuxt app, you can jump to Running Locally and come back to these sections later. Edgio supports Nuxt.js’s built-in routing scheme. The default routes.js file created by edgio init sends all requests to Nuxt.js via a fallback route:

JavaScript
// This file was added by edgio init.
// You should commit this file to source control.

const {Router} = require('@edgio/core/router');
const {nuxtRoutes, renderNuxtPage} = require('@edgio/nuxt');

module.exports = new Router().use(nuxtRoutes);

nuxtRoutes Middleware

In the code above, nuxtRoutes adds all Nuxt.js routes based on the /pages directory. It’s also compatible with extending Nuxt’s router via the router config in nuxt.config.js, for example:

JavaScript
// nuxt.config.js
export default {
  // ... more config ...
  router: {
    // For example, we can extend the nuxt router to accept /products in addition to /p.
    // The nuxtRoutes middleware automatically picks this up and adds it to the Edgio router
    extendRoutes(routes, resolve) {
      routes.push({
        path: '/products/:id?',
        component: resolve(__dirname, 'pages/p/_id.vue'),
      });
    },
  },
  // ... more config ...
};

You can add additional routes before and after nuxtRoutes, for example to send some URLs to an alternate backend. This is useful for gradually replacing an existing site with a new Nuxt.js app.

A popular use case is to fallback to a legacy site for any route that your Nuxt.js app isn’t configured to handle:

JavaScript
export default new Router()
  .use(nuxtRoutes)
  .fallback(({proxy}) => proxy('legacy'));

To configure the legacy backend, use edgio.config.js:

JavaScript
module.exports = {
  backends: {
    legacy: {
      domainOrIp: process.env.LEGACY_BACKEND_DOMAIN || 'legacy.my-site.com',
      hostHeader:
        process.env.LEGACY_BACKEND_HOST_HEADER || 'legacy.my-site.com',
    },
  },
};

Using environment variables here allows you to configure different legacy domains for each Edgio environment.

Caching

The easiest way to add edge caching to your nuxt.js app is to add caching routes before the middleware. For example, imagine you have /pages/c/_categoryId.js:

JavaScript
export default new Router()
  .get('/pages/c/:categoryId', ({cache}) => {
    cache({
      browser: {
        maxAgeSeconds: 0,
        serviceWorkerSeconds: 60 * 60 * 24,
      },
      edge: {
        maxAgeSeconds: 60 * 60 * 24,
        staleWhileRevalidateSeconds: 60 * 60,
      },
    });
  })
  .use(nuxtRoutes);

Prefetching

The @edgio/nuxt/module builds a service worker that enables prefetching using Edgio and injects it into your app’s browser code. The service worker is based on Google’s Workbox library. The entry point for the service worker source code is sw/service-worker.js. If your app has an existing service worker that uses workbox, you can copy its contents into sw/service-worker.js and simply add the following to your service worker:

JavaScript
import {Prefetcher} from '@edgio/prefetch/sw';
new Prefetcher().route();

The above allows you to prefetch pages from Performance’s cache to greatly improve browsing speed. To prefetch a page, add the Prefetch component from @edgio/vue to any router-link or nuxt-link element:

JavaScript
<template>
  <ul v-for="product in products">
    <li>
      <Prefetch v-bind:url="'/api/' + product.url">
        <nuxt-link v-bind:to="product.url">
          <img v-bind:src="product.thumbnail" />
        </nuxt-link>
      </Prefetch>
    </li>
  </ul>
</template>
<script>
  import { Prefetch } from '@edgio/vue'
  export default {
    components: {
      Prefetch,
    },
  }
</script>

The Prefetch component fetches data for the linked page from Performance’s cache based on the url property and adds it to the service worker’s cache when the link becomes visible in the viewport. When the user taps on the link, the page transition will be instantaneous because the browser won’t need to fetch data from the network.

Serving Sitemap with SSR

You can configure Nuxt to generate a sitemap in SSR mode with the following configuration:

JavaScriptnuxt.config.*
export default {
  ...

  // Modules: https://go.nuxtjs.dev/config-modules
  modules: [
    '@nuxtjs/sitemap',
  ],

  sitemap: {
    hostname: 'yourhost.com',
    path: '/sitemap.xml',
    defaults: {
      lastmod: new Date(),
      changefreq: 'weekly',
      priority: 0.8,
    },
  },
}

Within the Edgio router, add the following:

JavaScriptroutes.js
.match('/sitemap.xml', ({ renderWithApp }) => {
  renderWithApp()
})
.use(nuxtRoutes)

This will send all traffic for /sitemap.xml to Nuxt middleware for server-side rendering.

Static Sites

Edgio supports fully and partially static sites using Nuxt generate. To deploy a static Nuxt site on Edgio, simply set target: 'static' in nuxt.config.js and run edgio deploy. This will run nuxt build and nuxt generate to generate a static version of your site.

Incremental Static Rendering (ISG)

By default, requests for any pages that are not statically rendered at build time will fall back to server side rendering. If you use the Edgio router to cache pages that are not statically rendered, the first user who attempts to access the page will see the fallback HTML page generated by Nuxt (200.html by default). Edgio will render and cache the HTML in the background so that subsequent visits result in a full HTML response. This behavior is similar to Next.js incremental static rendering (ISG). Here is an example route that adds caching for a partially static page:

JavaScript
import {nuxtRoutes} from '@edgio/nuxt';
import {Router} from '@edgio/core/router';

export default new Router()
  .get('/products/:id', ({cache}) => {
    cache({
      edge: {
        // Requests for product pages that are not statically generated will fall back to SSR.
        // The first user will see the 200.html loading page generated by Nuxt.
        // Edgio will render full HTML response in the background and cache it for one hour at the edge.
        // All future requests to the page will result in the full HTML response.
        maxAgeSeconds: 60 * 60 * 24,
        staleWhileRevalidateSeconds: 60 * 60, // continue to serve stale responses from the edge cache while refreshing via SSR in the background
      },
    });
  })
  .use(nuxtRoutes);

Rendering a 404 Page

If you set the fallback property in the generate config to true, Nuxt.js will generate a 404.html page that will be served whenever the URL does not match a static page. Edgio will send a 404 http status for these URLs. Note that if you set the fallback property to a string, Nuxt will generate a fallback page with that name, and Edgio will serve it with a 200 http status when the URL does not match a statically generated page.

includeFiles

Nuxt requires that certain resources are included in a build and deploy to have access to them. As such, at times this will require additional configuration. To include additional resources for server side rendering, API calls, etc., use the includeFiles option in your edgio.config.js file. Read more

In this example, we would have an api folder that we want to include all items from.

JavaScript
includeFiles: {
  'api/**/*': true,
},

In addition, if includeNodeModules does not copy over the necessary package that may be needed in production, it can be included via this key as well. For instance,

JavaScript
includeFiles: {
  'node_modules/some_package/**/*': true,
}

Nitro

The Nuxt team provides a renderer called Nitro which optimizes your application for serverless deployment and greatly minimizes the size of your server application bundle. If you’re running into the size limitation for serverless bundles (50MB), you might try adding Nitro to your app. As of June 2021 Nitro is still not production ready, so use at your own risk.

Edgio provides a connector specifically for Nuxt apps that use nitro called @edgio/nuxt-nitro.

To add Nitro to your app, make the following changes:

Install nitro and the connector as dev dependencies:

Bash
npm install -D @nuxt/nitro @edgio/nuxt-nitro`

Ensure buildModules in nuxt.config.js contains the following:

JavaScript
buildModules: [
  '@nuxt/nitro/compat',
  '@edgio/nuxt-nitro/module', // If you have previously added @edgio/nuxt/module you can remove it.
  // ...others...
],

Add the following to nuxt.config.js:

JavaScript
publicRuntimeConfig: {
  nitroVersion: require('@nuxt/nitro/package.json').version,
},

If your nuxt.config.js has a target property, remove it.
If you’ve previously added @edgio/nuxt as a dependency, you can remove it.

Additional Nitro Resources

Nitro Demo Application from the Nuxt Team

Running Locally

Test your app with Sites on your local machine by running the following command in your project’s root directory:

Bash
edgio build && edgio run

You can do a production build of your app and test it locally using:

Bash
edgio build && edgio run --production

Setting --production runs your app exactly as it will be uploaded to the Edgio cloud using serverless-offline.

Deploying

Deploy your app to the Sites by running the following command in your project’s root directory:

1edgio deploy

See Deployments for more information.

Troubleshooting

The following section describes common gotchas and their workarounds.

I get an error message `Nuxt.js Internal Server Error`

This may be because you have a custom server framework (such as Express). Please make sure you selected None when asked to choose Choose custom server framework during the creation of your nuxt app.

edgio init doesn’t work

If you get a command not found error such as:

Bash
edgio init
- bash: edgio: command not found

Make sure you installed the Edgio CLI

1npm i -g @edgio/cli

Make sure your version of the Edgio CLI is current

If you previously installed the Edgio CLI, make sure your version is current.

Check npm for the latest released version of the CLI:

Bash
npm show @edgio/cli version
1.16.2

Compare the latest release against the version currently installed on your system:

Bash
edgio --version
1.16.2

If your version is out of date you can update it by running

1npm update -g @edgio/cli

Error on deploy: `edgio-deploy-lambda: Unzipped size must be smaller than...`

As the error states, there is an upper limit on how big a package can be when deployed to our serverless infrastructure. Some common strategies for solving:

You may need to move some dependencies as described here. Only dependencies are copied up to the lambda.
Make sure you are using imports in a smart way. A common example is changing: import { get } from lodash to import get from lodash/get to avoid unnecessary bloat in your modules

You can view what is included in your package under .edgio/lambda/ after a build, and running du -h -d 1 on the directories in a shell will output the size of each directory and help you identify where space savings can be found, ie du -h -d 1 .edgio/lambda/.nuxt