Boiler Plate Projects for Next.Js on App Engine Standard Environment Node.js Beta

I put together a couple projects to quickly get up and running with Next.js in the Google Ecosystem
October 10th, 2018  by Blaine Garrett

In March, I was accepted to the Early Access Program for the Google App Engine Node.js Standard Environment. Up to this point, Node.js support was limited to the Flexible Environment, which is what MPLSART has been running on since beta. The intoduction of Standard Environment support meant that Node.js was a first class runtime like Python, Java, PHP, and Go and introduced many of the App Engine niceties like scaling down instances, quotas, etc. While still in beta at the time of this writing, I am running the new front end of my site on the NodeJS Standard Environment. I used this opportunity to start tinkering with Nextjs, which abstracts a lot of the Webpack config ugliness while still allowing server side rendering (SSR/Universal/Isomorphic) React Apps, which I argue is still critical in the day of Faceboook Share, non Google Search engines, etc.

I gave a lightning talk on GAE+Node.js+Next.js at the March React MPLS meetup. While, it wasn't recorded, you can see my slides.

Additionally, I set up two ready to deploy projects - both ready to deploy to GAE. 

These projects make great boiler plates for getting started with Node.js and Next.js. For the demos too, I was excited to show off the Minneapolis Institute of Art's wonderful public Elastic API. I enjoyed working on it for the 3M Divining Rods project last year for Mia, but I will write about that more later.

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