In this post I’m going to walk you through getting a Docusaurus site stood-up on Fastly’s Compute platform for free in less than 2 minutes 💨
What is Docusaurus?
Docusaurus is an open-source static site generator designed for building efficient and easy-to-maintain documentation websites. It offers features like versioning, localization, and document search, making it ideal for technical documentation, blogs, and community-driven projects. Docusaurus simplifies content creation by supporting Markdown and provides customizable templates to get your site up and running quickly. Sounds pretty sweet.
Why Choose Fastly's Compute?
Fastly’s Compute platform takes your web applications closer to your users by running them on servers distributed worldwide. This reduces latency, improves load times, and enhances the overall user experience. It's an excellent platform for hosting static sites like those generated by Docusaurus due to its high-performance capabilities and global reach.
Step-by-Step
Some quick prerequisites
- Have at least Node 16 with NPM installed on your machine
- Ensure you have a free Fastly account. If not, sign up at Fastly's website
- Install the Fastly CLI and set yourself up with a valid auth token
1. Setting Up Your Docusaurus Project
First, create a new Docusaurus project if you haven't already:
npx create-docusaurus@latest docs-on-compute classic
Navigate into your project directory:
cd docs-on-compute
2. Building Your Docusaurus Site
Build your Docusaurus site locally:
npm run build
This step generates a static build of your site in the build directory.
3. Using the compute-js-static-publish Package
We're going to be using the Compute JS Static Publish package via NPX:
npx @fastly/compute-js-static-publish --preset=docusarus
This package greatly simplifies the deployment of static sites to Compute via the Fastly CLI. You’ll notice it created a new directory ./compute-js for you. Go ahead and change to that directory:
cd ./compute-js/
4. Using the Fastly CLI locally
Assuming you have the Fastly CLI installed and setup with a valid auth token, you can serve your new Docusaurus site on Compute locally by running:
fastly compute serve
If you head to http://127.0.0.1:7676/ in your browser you’ll see it running!
5. Deploying to Compute
Deploy your site to Compute using the CLI:
fastly compute publish
Follow the prompts to complete the deployment and boom – you’ve got yourself a Docusaurus site running on the Fastly’s highly performant edge! You can go manage the configuration in your Fastly account or continue iterating on your docs.
Conclusion
By leveraging Fastly's Compute platform for your Docusaurus site, you can significantly improve performance, ensure scalability and reliability, enhance security, and be cost-effective (free), all while offering a developer-friendly environment. The compute-js-static-publish package makes the process straightforward, allowing you to focus on writing the best documentation for your users – which is really the end goal. Happy coding!