gil-wiki/reference/1.getting-started/15.prerendering.md

---
title: "Prerendering"
description: Nuxt allows pages to be statically rendered at build time to improve certain performance or SEO metrics
navigation.icon: i-lucide-file-code-2
---

Nuxt allows for select pages from your application to be rendered at build time. Nuxt will serve the prebuilt pages when requested instead of generating them on the fly.

:read-more{title="Nuxt rendering modes" to="/docs/4.x/guide/concepts/rendering"}

## Crawl-based Pre-rendering

Use the [`nuxt generate` command](/docs/4.x/api/commands/generate) to build and pre-render your application using the [Nitro](/docs/4.x/guide/concepts/server-engine) crawler. This command is similar to `nuxt build` with the `nitro.static` option set to `true`, or running `nuxt build --prerender`.

This will build your site, stand up a nuxt instance, and, by default, prerender the root page `/` along with any of your site's pages it links to, any of your site's pages they link to, and so on.

::code-group{sync="pm"}

```bash [npm]
npx nuxt generate
```

```bash [yarn]
yarn nuxt generate
```

```bash [pnpm]
pnpm nuxt generate
```

```bash [bun]
bun x nuxt generate
```

```bash [deno]
deno x nuxt generate
```

::

You can now deploy the `.output/public` directory to any static hosting service or preview it locally with `npx serve .output/public`.

Working of the Nitro crawler:

1. Load the HTML of your application's root route (`/`), any non-dynamic pages in your `~/pages` directory, and any other routes in the `nitro.prerender.routes` array.
2. Save the HTML and `payload.json` to the `~/.output/public/` directory to be served statically.
3. Find all anchor tags (`<a href="...">`) in the HTML to navigate to other routes.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 for each anchor tag found until there are no more anchor tags to crawl.

This is important to understand since pages that are not linked to a discoverable page can't be pre-rendered automatically.

### Payload Extraction

Nuxt generates `_payload.json` alongside HTML for:
- Prerendered routes (at build time)
- ISR/SWR routes (on first request)

Payloads contain serialized data from `useAsyncData` and `useFetch`. Client-side navigation loads these cached payloads instead of re-fetching data. Configure dynamic routes like `pages/[...slug].vue` with route rules: `'/**': { isr: true }`.

::read-more{to="/docs/4.x/api/commands/generate#nuxt-generate"}
Read more about the `nuxt generate` command.
::

### Selective Pre-rendering

You can manually specify routes that [Nitro](/docs/4.x/guide/concepts/server-engine) will fetch and pre-render during the build or ignore routes that you don't want to pre-render like `/dynamic` in the `nuxt.config` file:

```ts twoslash [nuxt.config.ts]
// @errors: 2353
export default defineNuxtConfig({
  nitro: {
    prerender: {
      routes: ['/user/1', '/user/2'],
      ignore: ['/dynamic'],
    },
  },
})
```

You can combine this with the `crawlLinks` option to pre-render a set of routes that the crawler can't discover like your `/sitemap.xml` or `/robots.txt`:

```ts twoslash [nuxt.config.ts]
// @errors: 2353
export default defineNuxtConfig({
  nitro: {
    prerender: {
      crawlLinks: true,
      routes: ['/sitemap.xml', '/robots.txt'],
    },
  },
})
```

Setting `nitro.prerender` to `true` is similar to `nitro.prerender.crawlLinks` to `true`.

::read-more{to="https://nitro.build/config#prerender"}
Read more about pre-rendering in the Nitro documentation.
::

Lastly, you can manually configure this using routeRules.

```ts twoslash [nuxt.config.ts]
export default defineNuxtConfig({
  routeRules: {
    // Set prerender to true to configure it to be prerendered
    '/rss.xml': { prerender: true },
    // Set it to false to configure it to be skipped for prerendering
    '/this-DOES-NOT-get-prerendered': { prerender: false },
    // Everything under /blog gets prerendered as long as it
    // is linked to from another page
    '/blog/**': { prerender: true },
  },
})
```

::read-more{to="https://nitro.build/config#routerules"}
Read more about Nitro's `routeRules` configuration.
::

As a shorthand, you can also configure this in a page file using [`defineRouteRules`](/docs/4.x/api/utils/define-route-rules).

::read-more{to="/docs/4.x/guide/going-further/experimental-features#inlinerouterules" icon="i-lucide-star"}
This feature is experimental and in order to use it you must enable the `experimental.inlineRouteRules` option in your `nuxt.config`.
::

```vue [app/pages/index.vue]
<script setup>
// Or set at the page level
defineRouteRules({
  prerender: true,
})
</script>

<template>
  <div>
    <h1>Homepage</h1>
    <p>Pre-rendered at build time</p>
  </div>
</template>
```

This will be translated to:

```ts [nuxt.config.ts]
export default defineNuxtConfig({
  routeRules: {
    '/': { prerender: true },
  },
})
```

## Runtime Prerender Configuration

### `prerenderRoutes`

You can use this at runtime within a [Nuxt context](/docs/4.x/guide/going-further/nuxt-app#the-nuxt-context) to add more routes for Nitro to prerender.

```vue [app/pages/index.vue]
<script setup>
prerenderRoutes(['/some/other/url'])
prerenderRoutes('/api/content/article/my-article')
</script>

<template>
  <div>
    <h1>This will register other routes for prerendering when prerendered</h1>
  </div>
</template>
```

:read-more{title="prerenderRoutes" to="/docs/4.x/api/utils/prerender-routes"}

### `prerender:routes` Nuxt hook

This is called before prerendering for additional routes to be registered.

```ts [nuxt.config.ts]
export default defineNuxtConfig({
  hooks: {
    async 'prerender:routes' (ctx) {
      const { pages } = await fetch('https://api.some-cms.com/pages').then(
        res => res.json(),
      )
      for (const page of pages) {
        ctx.routes.add(`/${page.name}`)
      }
    },
  },
})
```

### `prerender:generate` Nitro hook

This is called for each route during prerendering. You can use this for fine-grained handling of each route that gets prerendered.

```ts [nuxt.config.ts]
export default defineNuxtConfig({
  nitro: {
    hooks: {
      'prerender:generate' (route) {
        if (route.route?.includes('private')) {
          route.skip = true
        }
      },
    },
  },
})
```