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Static Site Generation Cheat Sheet

Static Site Generation Cheat Sheet

Covers pre-building HTML at build time with SSG, Next.js static generation APIs, deployment pipelines, and incremental regeneration.

2 PagesIntermediateMar 5, 2026

Static Generation (Next.js)

Declaring which pages to build, plus ISR revalidation.

javascript
// pages/blog/[slug].jsexport async function getStaticPaths() {  const posts = await getAllPostSlugs(); // e.g. read markdown files  return {    paths: posts.map((slug) => ({ params: { slug } })),    fallback: false, // any path not returned here => 404  };}export async function getStaticProps({ params }) {  const post = await getPostBySlug(params.slug); // runs at build time  return {    props: { post },    revalidate: 3600, // ISR: regenerate at most once per hour  };}export default function BlogPost({ post }) {  return <article dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: post.html }} />;}

Build & Deploy Pipeline

Turning source content into static files, then shipping them.

bash
# Typical SSG build pipelinenpm run build          # e.g. `next build`, `astro build`, `hugo`# Output: a directory of static HTML/CSS/JS/assets, e.g. ./out or ./dist# Deploy static output to a CDN/hostnpx vercel deploy ./out --prod# oraws s3 sync ./dist s3://my-bucket --deleteaws cloudfront create-invalidation --distribution-id ABC123 --paths "/*"

Key Concepts

Terminology that comes up across every SSG tool.

  • Build time vs runtime- All HTML is generated once during the build, not per visitor request
  • Content source- Markdown files, a headless CMS, or a database queried only at build time
  • getStaticPaths/getStaticProps- Next.js APIs that declare which pages to build and their data
  • Rebuild triggers- A CMS webhook or git push triggers a new build/deploy (e.g. build hooks)
  • CDN caching- Static files are cacheable at the edge, giving fast global TTFB
  • Popular tools- Next.js, Astro, Hugo, Eleventy (11ty), Jekyll, Gatsby
Pro Tip

For sites with thousands of pages, avoid full rebuilds on every content change — use Incremental Static Regeneration or on-demand revalidation so only the changed pages rebuild instead of the entire site.

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