Next.js X Prisma Workshop

This is a workshop that will teach you how to build a fullstack app using Next.js and Prisma. If you prefer to watch this workshop in video format

Prerequisites

For this workshop, knowledge of JavaScript and React is strongly recommended, since you'll be using Next.js. Having some basic understanding of relational databases is helpful but not required. You also don't need to know TypeScript to complete this workshop.

You can check out the following resources:

Introduction

Next.js is a fullstack React framework, it allows you to build your frontend using React and easily set up an API. The framework also supports different data fetching strategies: you can fetch data at build time, client-side or server-side.

Prisma is a next-generation ORM for Node.js and TypeScript. It makes working with databases easy by providing you with simple workflows.

App architecture

Next.js

Prisma

What you'll be building

Throughout this workshop you'll build a feedback app where users can submit feedback.

This is what the final app will look like:

To follow along run the following commands.

git clone -b starter https://github.com/m-abdelwahab/nextjs-prisma-workshop
cd nextjs-prisma-workshop
npm install 
npm run dev

This will clone the starter branch, install the dependencies and start the development server. The app will be running at http://localhost:3000.

Project structure

The starter project includes the following dependencies installed:

TypeScript: type-safe JavaScript
react-hot-toast: library for displaying toast notifications
framer-motion: animation library for React
TailwindCSS: utility-first CSS framework
SWR: react hooks for remote data fetching
react-hook-form: form validation library

You'll find the following project structure

┣ data/
┃ ┗ feedback.ts
┣ pages/
┃ ┣ feedback/
┃ ┃ ┗ [id].tsx
┃ ┣ _app.tsx
┃ ┣ feedback.tsx
┃ ┗ index.tsx
┣ public/
┣ styles/
┣ .eslintrc.json
┃ ┗ tailwind.css
┣ .gitignore
┣ README.md
┣ next-env.d.ts
┣ next.config.js
┣ package-lock.json
┣ package.json
┣ postcss.config.js
┣ tailwind.config.js
┗ tsconfig.json

pages: Next.js has file-system based routing, where each file in this directory is autimatically a route.
- index.tsx renders the page located at http:///localhost:3000, which contains a form If you want to add more routes, create a new JS/TS file with the name of thr route (i.e. about.tsx, which will create a new page located at `http://localhost:3000/about)
- _app: global App component that wraps around your entire app. This file is used to add global styles using TailwindCSS
- feedback.tsx: page that will display a list of user-submitted feedback. Data is hard-coded and loaded from the data/feedback.ts file, which contains a list of feedback items
- public: folder for serving static assets such as images, fonts, etc.
- styles/tailwind.css: set up for TailwindCSS, imported in _app.tsx
- postcss.config.js: postcss config file, required to use TailwindCSS
- tailwind.config.js: TailwindCSS configuration file

Setting up the database layer using Prisma

npm install prisma -D

Initialize Prisma in your project

npx prisma init

Writing the database schema using Prisma

datasource db {
  provider = "postgresql"
  url      = env("DATABASE_URL")
}

generator client {
  provider = "prisma-client-js"
}

model Feedback {
  id           String       @id @default(uuid())
  createdAt    DateTime     @default(now())
  updatedAt    DateTime     @updatedAt
  feedbackType FeedbackType
  message      String
  email        String
  name         String
}

enum FeedbackType {
  ISSUE
  IDEA
  FEEDBACK
}

Creating a migration

npx prisma db push

Writing a seeding script

// prisma/seed.ts
import { PrismaClient } from '@prisma/client';

const prisma = new PrismaClient();

async function main() {
  await prisma.feedback.createMany({
    data: [
      {
        message: 'Lovely app',
        feedbackType: 'FEEDBACK',
        email: 'mahmoud@prisma.io',
        name: 'Mahmoud',
      },
      {
        message: 'Add dark mode',
        feedbackType: 'IDEA',
        email: 'dan@prisma.io',
        name: 'Dan',
      },
      {
        message: 'layout is broken on mobile',
        feedbackType: 'ISSUE',
        email: 'alex@prisma.io',
        name: 'Alex',
      },
    ],
  });
}

main()
  .catch((e) => {
    console.error(e);
    process.exit(1);
  })
  .finally(async () => await prisma.$disconnect);

Using Prisma Studio to explore the database

npx prisma studio

Setting up Prisma Client

npm install @prisma/client

import { PrismaClient } from '@prisma/client';

declare global {
  var prisma: PrismaClient | undefined;
}

export const prisma = global.prisma || new PrismaClient();

if (process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'production') global.prisma = prisma;

Creating the API using Next.js

`/api` folder

`create` endpoint to submit feedback

    try {
      fetch('http://localhost:3000/api/create', {
        body: JSON.stringify(data),
        headers: {
          'Content-Type': 'application/json',
        },
        method: 'POST',
      });
    } catch (error) {
      throw new Error(error);
    }

Next steps

Congratulations! You just built a fullstack app using Next.js, here are some next steps you can take

Creating a dynamic route for each feedback

Adding Authentication to secure the `/api/feedback` endpoint and the `/feedback` page

Deployment

Other cool features you can build

Filter feedback by type
Dark mode

iamjoross/nextjs-prisma-workshop