next-mdx

next-mdx

next-mdx provides a set of helper functions for fetching and rendering local MDX files. It handles relational data, supports custom components, TypeScript ready and is really fast.

next-mdx is great for building mdx-powered pages, multi-user blogs, category pages..etc.

TLDR

• 👉 Learn how to create a Next.js blog in 5 tweets: https://twitter.com/shadcn/status/1367888421805383683
• 🚀 What about build times? Is this fast? Yes: https://twitter.com/shadcn/status/1372275646840279040

Table of Contents

• Demo
• Quick Start
• Examples
• Installation
• Configuration
• Reference
  • getMdxPaths
  • getNode
  • getAllNodes
  • getMdxNode
  • getAllMdxNodes
  • useHydrate
  • getAllNodes vs getAllMdxNodes
• MDX Components
• MDX Options
• Relational Data
• Plugins
• TypeScript

Demo

https://next-mdx-example.vercel.app

Quick Start

Learn how next-mdx works by looking at examples.

• Go to example-page
• Open next-mdx.json to see the sample configuration.
• Open pages/[[...slug]].tsx to see how MDX files are fetched and rendered.
• See types/index.d.ts for TypeScript.

Examples

Click to expand examples.

next-mdx.json

{
  "post": {
    "contentPath": "content/posts",
    "basePath": "/blog",
    "sortBy": "date",
    "sortOrder": "desc"
  },
}

pages/posts/[...slug].jsx

import { useHydrate } from "next-mdx/client"
import { getMdxNode, getMdxPaths } from "next-mdx/server"

export default function PostPage({ post }) {
const content = useHydrate(post)

  return (
    <article>
      <h1 variant="heading.title">{post.frontMatter.title}</h1>
      {post.frontMatter.excerpt ? (
        <p variant="text.lead" mt="4">
          {post.frontMatter.excerpt}
        </p>
      ) : null}
      <hr />
      {content}
    </article>
  )

}

export async function getStaticPaths() {
return {
paths: await getMdxPaths("post"),
fallback: false,
}
}

export async function getStaticProps(context) {
const post = await getMdxNode("post", context)

  if (!post) {
    return {
      notFound: true,
    }
  }

  return {
    props: {
      post,
    },
  }

}

Installation

npm i --save next-mdx

Configuration

Create a next-mdx.json file at the root of your project with the following:

{
  "post": {
    "contentPath": "content/posts",
    "basePath": "/blog",
    "sortBy": "date",
    "sortOrder": "desc"
  },
  "category": {
    "contentPath": "content/categories"
  }
}

• post, category and author keys are unique IDs used as references for your MDX types.
• contentPath (required) is where your MDX files are located.
• basePath (optional) is the path used for generating URLs.
• sortBy (optional, defaults to title) is the name of the frontMatter field used for sorting.
• sortOrder (optional, defaults to asc) is the sorting order.

Reference

next-mdx exposes 6 main helper functions:

• getMdxPaths(sourceName: string)
• getNode(sourceName, context)
• getAllNodes(sourceName)
• getMdxNode(sourceName, context, params)
• getAllMdxNodes(sourceName, params)
• useHydrate(node, params)

getMdxPaths

getMdxPaths(sourceName: string) returns an array of path params which can be passed directly to paths in getStaticPaths`.

• sourceName is the unique ID defined in next-mdx.json

Example

// pages/blog/[...slug].js
import { getMdxPaths } from "next-mdx/server"

export async function getStaticPaths() {
  return {
    paths: await getMdxPaths("post"),
    fallback: false,
  }
}

getNode

getNode(sourceName, context) returns an MDXNode with frontMatter and relational data but without MDX data. This is really fast and cached.

Use this instead of getMdxNode if you are not rendering MDX content on a page.

• sourceName is the unique ID defined in next-mdx.json
• context is the context passed to getStaticProps or the slug as a string.

Example

// pages/blog/[...slug].js
import { getNode } from "next-mdx/server"

export async function getStaticProps(context) {
  const post = await getNode("post", context)

  if (!post) {
    return {
      notFound: true,
    }
  }

  return {
    props: {
      post,
    },
  }
}

getAllNodes

getAllNodes(sourceName) returns all MdxNode of the given type/source with frontMatter and relational data but without MDX data. This is also really fast and cached.

• sourceName is the unique ID defined in next-mdx.json

Example

import { getAllNodes } from "next-mdx/server"

export async function getStaticProps() {
  return {
    props: {
      posts: await getAllNodes("post"),
    },
  }
}

getMdxNode

getMdxNode(sourceName, context, params) returns an MDXNode.

• sourceName is the unique ID defined in next-mdx.json
• context is the context passed to getStaticProps or the slug as a string.
• params:

{
  components?: MdxRemote.Components
  scope?: Record<string, unknown>
  provider?: MdxRemote.Provider
  mdxOptions?: {
    remarkPlugins?: Pluggable[]
    rehypePlugins?: Pluggable[]
    hastPlugins?: Pluggable[]
    compilers?: Compiler[]
    filepath?: string
  }
}

Example

// pages/blog/[...slug].js
import { getMdxNode } from "next-mdx/server"

export async function getStaticProps(context) {
  const post = await getMdxNode("post", context)

  if (!post) {
    return {
      notFound: true,
    }
  }

  return {
    props: {
      post,
    },
  }
}

getAllMdxNodes

getAllMdxNodes(sourceName, params) returns all MdxNode of the given type/source.

• sourceName is the unique ID defined in next-mdx.json
• params:

{
  components?: { name: React.Component },
  scope?: {},
  provider?: { component: React.Component, props: Record<string, unknown> },
  mdxOptions: {
    remarkPlugins: [],
    rehypePlugins: [],
    hastPlugins: [],
    compilers: [],
  }
}

Example

import { getAllMdxNodes } from "next-mdx/server"

export async function getStaticProps() {
  const posts = await getAllMdxNodes("post")

  return {
    props: {
      posts: posts.filter((post) => post.frontMatter.featured),
    },
  }
}

useHydrate

useHydrate(node, params) is used on the client side for hydrating static content.

• node is the MdxNode object
• params:

{
  components?: { name: React.Component },
  provider?: { component: React.Component, props: Record<string, unknown> }
}

Example

import { useHydrate } from "next-mdx/client"

export default function PostPage({ post }) {
  const content = useHydrate(post)

  return (
    <div>
      <h1>{post.frontMatter.title}</h1>

      {content}
    </div>
  )
}

getAllNodes vs getAllMdxNodes

Use getAllNodes when you need nodes without the MDX content. It is backed by a cache and is really fast. This is handy when you need a list of nodes (example post teasers) and you're not using the MDX content.

MDX Components

To use components inside MDX files, you need to pass the components to both getMdxNode/getAllMdxNodes and useHydrate.

Example

import { getMdxNode } from "next-mdx/server"
import { useHydrate } from "next-mdx/client"

export function Alert({ text }) {
  return <p>{text}</p>
}

export default function PostPage({ post }) {
  const content = useHydrate(post, {
    components: {
      Alert,
    },
  })

  return (
    <div>
      <h1>{post.frontMatter.title}</h1>

      {content}
    </div>
  )
}

export async function getStaticProps(context) {
  const post = await getMdxNode("post", context, {
    components: {
      Alert,
    },
  })

  return {
    props: {
      post,
    },
  }
}

MDX Options

MDX options can be passed as params to both getMdxNode(sourceName, context, params) and getAllMdxNodes(sourceName, params) where params takes the shape of:

export interface MdxParams {
  components?: MdxRemote.Components
  scope?: Record<string, unknown>
  provider?: MdxRemote.Provider
  mdxOptions?: {
    remarkPlugins?: Pluggable[]
    rehypePlugins?: Pluggable[]
    hastPlugins?: Pluggable[]
    compilers?: Compiler[]
    filepath?: string
  }
}

Relational Data

When retrieving nodes with getMdxNode or getAllMdxNodes, next-mdx will automatically infer relational data from frontMatter keys.

Convention

• The frontMatter field name must be the same as the key defined in next-mdx.json
• The frontMatter field must be an array of values.

Example

Given the following MDX files.

.
└── content
    ├── categories
    │   └── category-a.mdx
    │   └── category-b.mdx
    └── posts:
        └── example-post.mdx

In example-post you can reference related categories using the following:

---
title: Example Post
category:
  - category-a
---

You can then access the categories as follows:

const post = getMdxNode("post", context)

// post.relationships.category

Plugins

• next-mdx-toc: Add table of contents to MDX pages.

TypeScript

Define your node types as follows:

interface Post extends MdxNode<FrontMatterFields> {}

Example

import { MdxNode } from "next-mdx/server"

interface Category
  extends MdxNode<{
    name: string
  }> {}

interface Post
  extends MdxNode<{
    title: string
    excerpt?: string
    category?: string[]
  }> {
  relationships?: {
    category: Category[]
  }
}

You can then use Post as the return type for getNode, getAllNodes, getMdxNode and getAllMdxNode:

const post = await getMdxNode<Post>("post", context)

const posts = await getAllNodes<Post>("post")

License

Licensed under the MIT license.