Getting Started

Installation

Preconditions

To get started, first you need an application to have Angular Universal installed and configured.

@rx-angular/isr is available as an npm package. To install it, run the following command:

npm install @rx-angular/isr

or if you use yarn or pnpm:

yarn add @rx-angular/isr

pnpm add @rx-angular/isr

Configure providers

To use it in your application, you need to register the providers in your app.server.module.ts file.

• Import the provideISR() function from the @rx-angular/isr/server package.
• Register the provider in the providers array of your NgModule.

app.server.module.ts

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { ServerModule } from '@angular/platform-server';

import { AppModule } from './app.module';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';

// 1. 👇 Import the provider function
import { provideISR } from '@rx-angular/isr/server';

@NgModule({
  imports: [AppModule, ServerModule],
  bootstrap: [AppComponent],
  providers: [
    provideISR(), // 2. 👈 Register the provider
  ],
})
export class AppServerModule {}

If you are in a standalone application, you can also register the provider in the serverConfig.

main.server.ts

import { provideISR, isrHttpInterceptors } from '@rx-angular/isr/server';

const serverConfig: ApplicationConfig = {
  providers: [
    provideServerRendering(),
    provideISR(), // 👈 Use it in config providers

    // register ISR Http Interceptors
    provideHttpClient(withInterceptors(isrHttpInterceptors)),
  ],
};

Configure server handling (Common Engine)

Now you need to configure the ISR handler in your server.ts file.

1. Import the ISRHandler class from the @rx-angular/isr package.
2. Create a new instance of the ISRHandler class.
3. Use the ISRHandler instance to handle the requests.
4. Comment out default handler, because it's will be handled in ISR render method.

server.ts

import { CommonEngine } from '@angular/ssr';
import express from 'express';
import { fileURLToPath } from 'node:url';
import { dirname, join, resolve } from 'node:path';
import bootstrap from './src/main.server';

// 1. 👇 Import the ISRHandler class
import { ISRHandler } from '@rx-angular/isr/server';

// The Express app is exported so that it can be used by serverless Functions.
export function app(): express.Express {
  const server = express();
  const serverDistFolder = dirname(fileURLToPath(import.meta.url));
  const browserDistFolder = resolve(serverDistFolder, '../browser');
  const indexHtml = join(serverDistFolder, 'index.server.html');

  const commonEngine = new CommonEngine();

  // 2. 👇 Instantiate the ISRHandler class with the index.html file
  const isr = new ISRHandler({
    indexHtml,
    invalidateSecretToken: 'MY_TOKEN', // replace with env secret key ex. process.env.REVALIDATE_SECRET_TOKEN
    enableLogging: true,
    serverDistFolder,
    browserDistFolder,
    bootstrap,
    commonEngine,
  });

  server.use(express.json());
  server.post(
    '/api/invalidate',
    async (req, res) => await isr.invalidate(req, res)
  );

  server.set('view engine', 'html');
  server.set('views', browserDistFolder);

  // Example Express Rest API endpoints
  // server.get('/api/**', (req, res) => { });
  // Serve static files from /browser
  server.get(
    '*.*',
    express.static(browserDistFolder, {
      maxAge: '1y',
    })
  );

  // 3. 👇 Use the ISRHandler to handle the requests
  server.get(
    '*',
    // Serve page if it exists in cache
    async (req, res, next) => await isr.serveFromCache(req, res, next),
    // Server side render the page and add to cache if needed
    async (req, res, next) => await isr.render(req, res, next)
  );

  return server;
}

[Optional] Configure server handling (Express Engine)

⚠️ This was the old way of configuring the server handling. It's still supported, but it's recommended to use the Common Engine way.

Now you need to configure the ISR handler in your server.ts file.

1. Import the ISRHandler class from the @rx-angular/isr package.
2. Create a new instance of the ISRHandler class.
3. Use the ISRHandler instance to handle the requests.
4. Comment out default angular universal handler, because it's will be handled in ISR render method.

server.ts

import { environment } from './src/environments/environment';
import 'zone.js/dist/zone-node';

import { ngExpressEngine } from '@nguniversal/express-engine';
import * as express from 'express';
import { join } from 'path';

import { AppServerModule } from './src/main.server';
import { existsSync } from 'fs';

// 1. 👇 Import the ISRHandler class
import { ISRHandler } from '@rx-angular/isr/server';

export function app(): express.Express {
  const server = express();
  const distFolder = join(process.cwd(), 'dist/docs/browser');
  const indexHtml = existsSync(join(distFolder, 'index.original.html'))
    ? 'index.original.html'
    : 'index';

  // 2. 👇 Instantiate the ISRHandler class with the index.html file
  const isr = new ISRHandler({
    indexHtml,
    invalidateSecretToken: process.env['INVALIDATE_TOKEN'] || 'MY_TOKEN',
    enableLogging: !environment.production,
  });

  server.engine('html', ngExpressEngine({ bootstrap: AppServerModule }));

  server.set('view engine', 'html');
  server.set('views', distFolder);

  server.get('*.*', express.static(distFolder, { maxAge: '1y' }));

  // 3. 👇 Use the ISRHandler to handle the requests
  server.get(
    '*',
    // Serve page if it exists in cache
    async (req, res, next) => await isr.serveFromCache(req, res, next),
    // Server side render the page and add to cache if needed
    async (req, res, next) => await isr.render(req, res, next)
  );

  // 4: 👇 Comment out default angular universal handler, because it's will be handled in ISR render method
  // (req, res) => {
  //   res.render(indexHtml, { req, providers: [{ provide: APP_BASE_HREF, useValue: req.baseUrl }] });
  // }

  return server;
}

tip

Congratulations! You have successfully configured the @rx-angular/isr package.

Configure routes

Now that we have configured the @rx-angular/isr package, we need to configure the routes that we want to be cached using ISR.

To do this, we need to add the revalidate key in the route data object.

app.routes.ts

import { Routes } from '@angular/router';

export const routes: Routes = [
  {
    path: 'home',
    component: HomeComponent,
    data: {
      revalidate: 100, // 👈 Add the revalidate key
    },
  },
];

The revalidate key is the number of seconds after which the page will be revalidated.

If you don't want a specific route to be handled by the ISR handler, you just shouldn't add the revalidate key in the route data object.

Start Development Server

In v17 the application builder won't use the server.ts file in development mode. So, it's recommended to build the application independently and start the server with node independently.

ng build -c=development --watch

node dist/your-app/server/server.mjs --watch