deploy-nuxtjs.md

title	description	services	author	ms.service	ms.topic	ms.date	ms.author	ms.custom
Tutorial: Deploy server-rendered Nuxt.js websites on Azure Static Web Apps	Generate and deploy Nuxt.js dynamic sites with Azure Static Web Apps.	static-web-apps	craigshoemaker	static-web-apps	tutorial	05/08/2020	cshoe	devx-track-js

Deploy static-rendered Nuxt.js websites on Azure Static Web Apps

In this tutorial, you learn to deploy a Nuxt.js generated static website to Azure Static Web Apps. To begin, you learn to set up, configure, and deploy a Nuxt.js app. During this process, you also learn to deal with common challenges often faced when generating static pages with Nuxt.js

Prerequisites

• An Azure account with an active subscription. Create an account for free.
• A GitHub account. Create an account for free.
• Node.js installed.

Set up a Nuxt.js app

You can set up a new Nuxt.js project using create-nuxt-app. Instead of a new project, in this tutorial you begin by cloning an existing repository. This repository is set up to demonstrate how to deploy a dynamic Nuxt.js app as a static site.

1. Create a new repository under your GitHub account from a template repository.

2. Navigate to http://github.com/staticwebdev/nuxtjs-starter/generate

3. Name the repository nuxtjs-starter.

4. Next, clone the new repo to your machine. Make sure to replace <YOUR_GITHUB_ACCOUNT_NAME> with your account name.

   git clone http://github.com/<YOUR_GITHUB_ACCOUNT_NAME>/nuxtjs-starter

5. Navigate to the newly cloned Nuxt.js app:

   cd nuxtjs-starter

6. Install dependencies:

   npm install

7. Start Nuxt.js app in development:

   npm run dev

Navigate to http://localhost:3000 to open the app, where you should see the following website open in your preferred browser:

:::image type="content" source="media/deploy-nuxtjs/start-nuxtjs-app.png" alt-text="Start Nuxt.js app":::

When you click on a framework/library, you should see a details page about the selected item:

:::image type="content" source="media/deploy-nuxtjs/start-nuxtjs-details.png" alt-text="Details page":::

Generate a static website from Nuxt.js build

When you build a Nuxt.js site using npm run build, the app is built as a traditional web app, not a static site. To generate a static site, use the following application configuration.

1. Update the package.json's build script to only generate a static site using the nuxt generate command:

   "scripts": {
     "dev": "nuxt dev",
     "build": "nuxt generate"
   },

   Now with this command in place, Static Web Apps will run the build script every time you push a commit.

2. Generate a static site:

   npm run build

   Nuxt.js will generate the static site and copy it into a dist folder at the root of your working directory.

   [!NOTE] This folder is listed in the .gitignore file because it should be generated by CI/CD when you deploy.

Deploy your static website

The following steps show how to link the app you just pushed to GitHub to Azure Static Web Apps. Once in Azure, you can deploy the application to a production environment.

Create an Azure Static Web Apps resource

1. Navigate to the Azure portal.

2. Select Create a Resource.

3. Search for Static Web Apps.

4. Select Static Web Apps.

5. Select Create.

6. On the Basics tab, enter the following values.

   Property	Value
   Subscription	Your Azure subscription name.
   Resource group	my-nuxtjs-group
   Name	my-nuxtjs-app
   Plan type	Free
   Region for Azure Functions API and staging environments	Select a region closest to you.
   Source	GitHub

7. Select Sign in with GitHub and authenticate with GitHub.

8. Enter the following GitHub values.

   Property	Value
   Organization	Select your desired GitHub organization.
   Repository	Select the repository you created earlier.
   Branch	Select main.

9. In the Build Details section, select Custom from the Build Presets drop-down and keep the default values.

10. In the App location, enter ./ in the box.

11. Leave the Api location box empty.

12. In the Output location box, enter dist.

Review and create

1. Select the Review + Create button to verify the details are all correct.

2. Select Create to start the creation of the App Service Static Web App and provision a GitHub Actions for deployment.

3. Once the deployment completes click, Go to resource.

4. On the Overview window, click the URL link to open your deployed application.

If the website does note immediately load, then the background GitHub Actions workflow is still running. Once the workflow is complete you can then click refresh the browser to view your web app.

You can check the status of the Actions workflows by navigating to the Actions for your repository:

https://github.com/<YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME>/nuxtjs-starter/actions

Sync changes

When you created the app, Azure Static Web Apps created a GitHub Actions workflow file in your repository. You need to bring this file down to your local repository so your git history is synchronized.

Return to the terminal and run the following command git pull origin main.

Configure dynamic routes

Navigate to the newly-deployed site and click on one of the framework or library logos. Instead of getting a details page, you get a 404 error page.

:::image type="content" source="media/deploy-nuxtjs/404-in-production.png" alt-text="404 on dynamic routes":::

The reason for this is, Nuxt.js generated the static site, it only did so for the home page. Nuxt.js can generate equivalent static .html files for every .vue pages file, but there's an exception.

If the page is a dynamic page, for example _id.vue, it won't have enough information to generate a static HTML from such dynamic page. You'll have to explicitly provide the possible paths for the dynamic routes.

Generate static pages from dynamic routes

1. Update the nuxt.config.js file so that Nuxt.js uses a list of all available data to generate static pages for each framework/library:

     import { projects } from "./utils/projectsData";
   
     export default {
       mode: "universal",
   
       //...truncated
   
       generate: {
         async routes() {
           const paths = [];
   
           projects.forEach(project => {
             paths.push(`/project/${project.slug}`);
           });
   
           return paths;
         }
       }
     };

   [!NOTE] routes is an async function, so you can make a request to an API in this function and use the returned list to generate the paths.

2. Push the new changes to your GitHub repository and wait for a few minutes while GitHub Actions builds your site again. After the build is complete, the 404 error disappears.

   :::image type="content" source="media/deploy-nuxtjs/404-in-production-fixed.png" alt-text="404 on dynamic routes fixed":::

[!div class="nextstepaction"] Set up a custom domain