Next.js App

Example applications are a great way to explore the headless capabilities of Adobe Experience Manager (AEM). This Next.js application demonstrates how to query content using AEM’s GraphQL APIs using persisted queries. The AEM Headless Client for JavaScript is used to execute the GraphQL persisted queries that power the app.

Next.js app with AEM Headless

View the source code on GitHub

Prerequisites

The following tools should be installed locally:

AEM requirements

The Next.js app works with the following AEM deployment options. All deployments requires WKND Shared v2.1.0+ or WKND Site v2.1.0+ to be installed on the AEM as a Cloud Service environment.

This example Next.js app is designed to connect to AEM Publish service.

AEM Author requirements

The Next.js is designed to connect to AEM Publish service, and access unprotected content. The Next.js can be configured to connect to AEM Author via the .env properties described below. Images served from AEM Author require authentication, and thus the user accessing the Next.js app must also be logged into AEM Author.

How to use

  1. Clone the adobe/aem-guides-wknd-graphql repository:

    $ git clone git@github.com:adobe/aem-guides-wknd-graphql.git

  2. Edit the aem-guides-wknd-graphql/next-js/.env.local file and set NEXT_PUBLIC_AEM_HOST to the AEM service.

    # AEM service
NEXT_PUBLIC_AEM_HOST=https://publish-p123-e456.adobeaemcloud.com/
...

    If connecting to AEM Author service, authentication must be provided as AEM Author service is secure by default.

    To use a local AEM account set AEM_AUTH_METHOD=basic and provide the user name and password in the AEM_AUTH_USER and AEM_AUTH_PASSWORD properties.

    ...
# The variables are not prefixed with NEXT_PUBLIC so they are only available server-side
AEM_AUTH_METHOD=basic
AEM_AUTH_USER=aem-user-account
AEM_AUTH_PASSWORD=password-for-the-aem-user-account

    To use an AEM as a Cloud Service local development token set AEM_AUTH_METHOD=dev-token and provide the full dev token value in the AEM_AUTH_DEV_TOKEN property.

    ...
# The variables are not prefixed with NEXT_PUBLIC so they are only available server-side
AEM_AUTH_METHOD=dev-token
AEM_AUTH_DEV_TOKEN=my-dev-token

  3. Edit the aem-guides-wknd-graphql/next-js/.env.local file and validate NEXT_PUBLIC_AEM_GRAPHQL_ENDPOINT is set to the appropriate AEM GraphQL endpoint.

    When using WKND Shared or WKND Site, use the wknd-shared GraphQL API endpoint.

    ...
NEXT_PUBLIC_AEM_GRAPHQL_ENDPOINT=wknd-shared
...

  4. Open a command prompt and start the Next.js app using the following commands:

    $ cd aem-guides-wknd-graphql/next-js
$ npm install
$ npm run dev

  5. A new browser window opens the Next.js app at http://localhost:3000

  6. The Next.js app displays a list of adventures. Selecting an adventure opens its details in a new page.

The code

Below is a summary of how the Next.js app is built, how it connects to AEM Headless to retrieve content using GraphQL persisted queries, and how that data is presented. The full code can be found on GitHub.

Persisted queries

Following AEM Headless best practices, the Next.js app uses AEM GraphQL persisted queries to query adventure data. The app uses two persisted queries:

  • wknd/adventures-all persisted query, which returns all adventures in AEM with an abridged set of properties. This persisted query drives the initial view’s adventure list.
# Retrieves a list of all adventures
{
    adventureList {
        items {
            _path
            slug
            title
            price
            tripLength
            primaryImage {
                ... on ImageRef {
                _path
                mimeType
                width
                height
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
  • wknd/adventure-by-slug persisted query, which returns a single adventure by slug (a custom property that uniquely identifies an adventure) with a complete set of properties. This persisted query powers the adventure detail views.
# Retrieves an adventure Content Fragment based on it's slug
# Example query variables:
# {"slug": "bali-surf-camp"}
# Technically returns an adventure list but since the the slug
# property is set to be unique in the CF Model, only a single CF is expected

query($slug: String!) {
  adventureList(filter: {
        slug: {
          _expressions: [ { value: $slug } ]
        }
      }) {
    items {
      _path
      title
      slug
      activity
      adventureType
      price
      tripLength
      groupSize
      difficulty
      price
      primaryImage {
        ... on ImageRef {
          _path
          mimeType
          width
          height
        }
      }
      description {
        json
        plaintext
      }
      itinerary {
        json
        plaintext
      }
    }
    _references {
      ...on AdventureModel {
        _path
        slug
        title
        price
        __typename
      }
    }
  }
}

Execute GraphQL persisted query

AEM’s persisted queries are executed over HTTP GET and thus, the AEM Headless client for JavaScript is used to execute the persisted GraphQL queries against AEM and load the adventure content into the app.

Each persisted query has a corresponding function in src/lib//aem-headless-client.js, that calls the AEM GraphQL end point, and returns the adventure data.

Each function in turn invokes the aemHeadlessClient.runPersistedQuery(...), executing the persisted GraphQL query.

// src/lib/aem-headless-client.js

...
/**
 * Invokes the 'adventures-all` persisted query using the parameterizable namespace.
 *
 * @returns a GraphQL response of all adventures.
 */
async getAllAdventures() {
  const queryAdventuresAll = process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_AEM_GRAPHQL_ENDPOINT + '/adventures-all';

  try {
    return await this.aemHeadlessClient.runPersistedQuery(queryAdventuresAll);
  } catch(e) {
    console.error(e)
  }
}

// And so on, and so forth ...

async getAdventureSlugs() { ... }

async getAdventuresBySlug(slug) { ... }
...

Pages

The Next.js app uses two pages to present the adventure data.

  • src/pages/index.js

    Uses Next.js’s getServerSideProps() to call getAllAdventures() and displays each adventure as a card.

    The use of getServerSiteProps() allows for Server-Side Rendering of this Next.js page.

  • src/pages/adventures/[...slug].js

    A Next.js Dynamic Route that displays a single adventure’s details. This dynamic route prefetches each adventure’s data using Next.js’s getStaticProps() via a call to getAdventureBySlug(..) using the slug param passed in via the adventure selection on the adventures/index.js page.

    The dynamic route is able to pre-fetch the details for all adventures by using Next.js’s getStaticPaths() and populating all possible route permutations based on the full list of adventures returned by the GraphQL query getAdventurePaths()

    The use of getStaticPaths() and getStaticProps(..) allowed the Static Site Generation of these Next.js pages.

Deployment configuration

Next.js apps, especially in the context of Server-side rendering (SSR) and Server-side generation (SSG), do not require advanced security configurations such as Cross-origin Resource Sharing (CORS).

However, if the Next.js does make HTTP requests to AEM from the context of the client, security configurations in AEM may be required. Review the AEM Headless single-page app deployment tutorial for more details.

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