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Pre-rendering (SSG)

Learn how to pre-render static pages at build time for optimal performance and SEO.

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Overview

Pre-rendering (Static Site Generation) generates HTML pages at build time, providing:
  • Instant page loads from CDN
  • Perfect SEO with fully-rendered HTML
  • Lower server costs
  • Better performance at scale

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Configuring Pre-rendering

Define pages to pre-render in your config: 
// react-router.config.ts
import type { Config } from "@react-router/dev/config";

export default {
  async prerender() {
    return [
      "/",
      "/about",
      "/contact",
      "/products",
    ];
  },
} satisfies Config;

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Dynamic Path Pre-rendering

Generate paths from your data: 
// react-router.config.ts
import type { Config } from "@react-router/dev/config";

export default {
  async prerender() {
    const posts = await db.post.findMany();
    const products = await db.product.findMany();

    return [
      "/",
      "/blog",
      ...posts.map((post) => `/blog/${post.slug}`),
      "/products",
      ...products.map((product) => `/products/${product.id}`),
    ];
  },
} satisfies Config;

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Pre-rendering with Loaders

Loaders run at build time for pre-rendered routes: 
// app/routes/blog.$slug.tsx
import type { Route } from "./+types/blog.$slug";

export async function loader({ params }: Route.LoaderArgs) {
  const post = await getPost(params.slug);

  if (!post) {
    throw new Response("Not Found", { status: 404 });
  }

  return { post };
}

export default function BlogPost({ loaderData }: Route.ComponentProps) {
  return (
    <article>
      <h1>{loaderData.post.title}</h1>
      <time>{loaderData.post.publishedAt}</time>
      <div dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: loaderData.post.content }} />
    </article>
  );
}

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Advanced Pre-render Configuration

Customize pre-rendering behavior: 
// react-router.config.ts
import type { Config } from "@react-router/dev/config";

export default {
  async prerender({ getStaticPaths }) {
    const routes = await getStaticPaths();

    return {
      // List of paths to pre-render
      paths: [
        "/",
        "/about",
        ...routes,
      ],

      // Number of concurrent renders
      concurrency: 10,

      // Retry failed renders
      retryCount: 3,
      retryDelay: 500,

      // Follow redirects up to this many times
      maxRedirects: 5,

      // Timeout for each render
      timeout: 10000,
    };
  },
} satisfies Config;

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Fetching Data for Pre-rendering

Query your database or API at build time: 
// react-router.config.ts
import { db } from "./app/db.server";
import type { Config } from "@react-router/dev/config";

export default {
  async prerender() {
    // Fetch all published posts
    const posts = await db.post.findMany({
      where: { published: true },
      select: { slug: true },
    });

    // Fetch all active categories
    const categories = await db.category.findMany({
      where: { active: true },
      select: { slug: true },
    });

    return [
      // Static pages
      "/",
      "/about",
      "/blog",

      // Dynamic blog posts
      ...posts.map((post) => `/blog/${post.slug}`),

      // Category pages
      ...categories.map((cat) => `/blog/category/${cat.slug}`),
    ];
  },
} satisfies Config;

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Partial Pre-rendering

Mix pre-rendered and dynamic pages: 
// react-router.config.ts
import type { Config } from "@react-router/dev/config";

export default {
  // Pre-render only these routes
  async prerender() {
    return [
      "/",           // Home page
      "/about",      // About page
      "/pricing",    // Pricing page
    ];
  },

  // Other routes render on-demand
} satisfies Config;

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Build-Time Environment

Access build-time environment variables: 
// app/routes/blog._index.tsx
import type { Route } from "./+types/blog._index";

export async function loader({}: Route.LoaderArgs) {
  // This runs at build time for pre-rendered pages
  const posts = await fetch(
    `${process.env.CMS_API_URL}/posts`,
    {
      headers: {
        Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.CMS_API_KEY}`,
      },
    }
  ).then((r) => r.json());

  return { posts };
}

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Incremental Static Regeneration

Rebuild specific pages on-demand: 
// app/routes/blog.$slug.tsx
import type { Route } from "./+types/blog.$slug";

export async function loader({ params }: Route.LoaderArgs) {
  const post = await getPost(params.slug);

  if (!post) {
    throw new Response("Not Found", { status: 404 });
  }

  return json(
    { post },
    {
      headers: {
        // Revalidate after 1 hour
        "Cache-Control": "public, max-age=3600, s-maxage=3600",
      },
    }
  );
}

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Sitemap Generation

Generate a sitemap from pre-rendered paths: 
// react-router.config.ts
import type { Config } from "@react-router/dev/config";
import { writeFileSync } from "fs";

export default {
  async prerender() {
    const posts = await db.post.findMany({
      select: { slug: true, updatedAt: true },
    });

    const paths = [
      { path: "/", priority: 1.0 },
      { path: "/about", priority: 0.8 },
      ...posts.map((post) => ({
        path: `/blog/${post.slug}`,
        lastmod: post.updatedAt.toISOString(),
        priority: 0.6,
      })),
    ];

    // Generate sitemap.xml
    const sitemap = `<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
${paths
  .map(
    (p) => `  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com${p.path}</loc>
    ${p.lastmod ? `<lastmod>${p.lastmod}</lastmod>` : ""}
    <priority>${p.priority}</priority>
  </url>`
  )
  .join("\n")}
</urlset>`;

    writeFileSync("public/sitemap.xml", sitemap);

    return paths.map((p) => p.path);
  },
} satisfies Config;

​
RSS Feed Generation

Create RSS feeds during pre-rendering: 
// react-router.config.ts
import { writeFileSync } from "fs";

export default {
  async prerender() {
    const posts = await db.post.findMany({
      where: { published: true },
      orderBy: { publishedAt: "desc" },
      take: 20,
    });

    // Generate RSS feed
    const rss = `<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">
  <channel>
    <title>My Blog</title>
    <link>https://example.com</link>
    <description>Blog posts</description>
    ${posts
      .map(
        (post) => `
    <item>
      <title>${post.title}</title>
      <link>https://example.com/blog/${post.slug}</link>
      <description>${post.excerpt}</description>
      <pubDate>${post.publishedAt.toUTCString()}</pubDate>
    </item>`
      )
      .join("")}
  </channel>
</rss>`;

    writeFileSync("public/rss.xml", rss);

    return posts.map((post) => `/blog/${post.slug}`);
  },
} satisfies Config;

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Build Optimization

Optimize pre-rendering performance: 
// react-router.config.ts
import type { Config } from "@react-router/dev/config";

export default {
  async prerender() {
    // Fetch data once, use for multiple pages
    const [posts, products, categories] = await Promise.all([
      db.post.findMany(),
      db.product.findMany(),
      db.category.findMany(),
    ]);

    const paths = [
      "/",
      ...posts.map((p) => `/blog/${p.slug}`),
      ...products.map((p) => `/products/${p.id}`),
      ...categories.map((c) => `/category/${c.slug}`),
    ];

    return {
      paths,
      concurrency: 20, // Render 20 pages in parallel
    };
  },
} satisfies Config;

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Deployment

Deploy pre-rendered sites to static hosts: 
# Build with pre-rendering
npm run build

# Deploy build/client to:
# - Netlify
# - Vercel
# - Cloudflare Pages
# - AWS S3 + CloudFront
# - GitHub Pages

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Handling 404s

Pre-render a custom 404 page: 
// react-router.config.ts
export default {
  async prerender() {
    return [
      "/",
      "/404", // Pre-render 404 page
      // ... other pages
    ];
  },
} satisfies Config;
Configure your host: 
# netlify.toml
[[redirects]]
  from = "/*"
  to = "/404.html"
  status = 404

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Best Practices

  1. Pre-render static content - Marketing pages, blog posts, documentation
  2. Skip user-specific pages - Don’t pre-render dashboards or personalized content
  3. Use concurrency - Speed up builds by rendering pages in parallel
  4. Generate sitemaps - Help search engines discover your pages
  5. Optimize images - Compress and resize images at build time
  6. Cache headers - Set long cache times for pre-rendered HTML
  7. Monitor build times - Keep builds fast as your site grows
  8. Validate paths - Ensure all pre-rendered paths return 200 status

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