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.

View the source code on GitHub

Prerequisites 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 v3.0.0+ or WKND Site v3.0.0+ 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

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:

# Retrieves a list of all Adventures
#
# Optional query variables:
# - { "offset": 10 }
# - { "limit": 5 }
# - {
#    "imageFormat": "JPG",
#    "imageWidth": 1600,
#    "imageQuality": 90
#   }
query ($offset: Int, $limit: Int, $sort: String, $imageFormat: AssetTransformFormat=JPG, $imageWidth: Int=1200, $imageQuality: Int=80) {
  adventureList(
    offset: $offset
    limit: $limit
    sort: $sort
    _assetTransform: {
      format: $imageFormat
      width: $imageWidth
      quality: $imageQuality
      preferWebp: true
  }) {
    items {
      _path
      slug
      title
      activity
      price
      tripLength
      primaryImage {
        ... on ImageRef {
          _path
          _dynamicUrl
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

# Retrieves an Adventure Fragment based on it's unique slug.
#
# Required query variables:
# - {"slug": "bali-surf-camp"}
#
# Optional query variables:
# - {
#     "imageFormat": "JPG",
#     "imageSeoName": "my-adventure",
#     "imageWidth": 1600,
#     "imageQuality": 90
#   }
#
# This query returns an adventure list but since the the slug property is set to be unique in the Content Fragment Model, only a single Content Fragment is expected.

query ($slug: String!, $imageFormat:AssetTransformFormat=JPG, $imageSeoName: String, $imageWidth: Int=1200, $imageQuality: Int=80) {
  adventureList(
    filter: {slug: {_expressions: [{value: $slug}]}}
    _assetTransform: {
      format: $imageFormat
      seoName: $imageSeoName
      width: $imageWidth
      quality: $imageQuality
      preferWebp: true
  }) {
    items {
      _path
      title
      slug
      activity
      adventureType
      price
      tripLength
      groupSize
      difficulty
      price
      primaryImage {
        ... on ImageRef {
          _path
          _dynamicUrl
        }
      }
      description {
        json
        plaintext
        html
      }
      itinerary {
        json
        plaintext
        html
      }
    }
    _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(queryVariables) { ... }

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

Pages

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

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.