I want to leverage Next.JS's Build Caching when doing CD via App Platform

Posted on December 19, 2023

I was looking through the recommended CD flow for Next.JS and they mentioned to cache .next/ across builds (https://nextjs.org/docs/pages/building-your-application/deploying/ci-build-caching)

I was wondering how can I specify a folder to cache between builds?

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Bobby Iliev

December 21, 2023

Accepted Answer

Hey @davidliu,

The App Platform uses Cloud Native Buildpacks and Dockerfiles for building Node.js applications, including Next.js. It automatically detects and builds these apps based on certain files like package.json, package-lock.json, or yarn.lock, but it doesn’t include a direct way to define custom cache directories in this process.

The best thing to do to get your voice heard regarding this would be to head over to our Product Ideas board and post a new idea, including as much information as possible for what you’d like to see implemented.

https://ideas.digitalocean.com/

On another note the buildpack automatically caches and re-uses the node_modules directory between builds. After the package manager’s install command is run (yarn install or npm install), the node_modules directory is stored in the build cache along with snapshot of the package manager’s lockfile. In subsequent builds, the cached node_modules directory will be restored only if the lockfile’s contents are identical to cached version. Otherwise, the cache will be discarded.

Hope that helps!

- Bobby.