NextJS - Deployment

Build Once, Deploy Anywhere

• Is a key software engineering principle
• So we use Docker to package application, so that it's environment agnostic.
• However NextJS Static Export does not support this principle

NextJS Static Export

• In NextJS, env variables are evaluated and interpolated at build time.
• If you want to change the value for different stage, you need to rebuild the app and create separate docker images.
• Not possible to inject different env configurations in different environment
• End up have to build the artifacts multiple times for each environment
• The "build once, deploy anywhere" philosophy is at odds with having statically generated pages and content built into the image.
• There is no way to access runtime environment variables in static pages.
• This is because static pages are pre-rendered at build time.
• Ideally we can create a single Docker image and resuse them across multiple environments