Route Handlers

Route Handlers allow you to create custom request handlers for a given route using the Web Request and Response APIs.

Good to know: Route Handlers are only available inside the app directory. They are the equivalent of API Routes inside the pages directory meaning you do not need to use API Routes and Route Handlers together.

Convention

Route Handlers are defined in a route.js|ts file inside the app directory:

export async function GET(request: Request) {}

Route Handlers can be nested inside the app directory, similar to page.js and layout.js. But there cannot be a route.js file at the same route segment level as page.js.

Supported HTTP Methods

The following HTTP methods are supported: GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, and OPTIONS.

Extended NextRequest and NextResponse APIs

In addition to supporting native Request and Response. Next.js extends them with NextRequest and NextResponse to provide convenient helpers for advanced use cases.

Behavior

Static Route Handlers

Route Handlers are statically evaluated by default when using the GET method with the Response object.

import { NextResponse } from 'next/server';

export async function GET() {
  const res = await fetch('https://data.mongodb-api.com/...', {
    headers: {
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
      'API-Key': process.env.DATA_API_KEY,
    },
  });
  const data = await res.json();

  return NextResponse.json({ data })
}

TypeScript Warning: Although Response.json() is valid, native TypeScript types currently shows an error, you can use NextResponse.json() for typed responses instead.

Static fetching can be beneficial to generate custom route handlers for robots.txt, rss.xml, sitemap.xml, and other routes. See Example.

Dynamic Route Handlers

Route handlers are evaluated dynamically when:

• Using the Request object with the GET method.
• Using any of the other HTTP methods.
• Using Dynamic Functions like cookies and headers.

For example:

import { NextResponse } from 'next/server';

export async function GET(request: Request) {
  const { searchParams } = new URL(request.url);
  const id = searchParams.get('id');
  const res = await fetch(`https://data.mongodb-api.com/product/${id}`, {
    headers: {
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
      'API-Key': process.env.DATA_API_KEY,
    },
  });
  const product = await res.json();

  return NextResponse.json({ product })
}

Similarly, the POST method will cause the Route Handler to be evaluated dynamically.

import { NextResponse } from 'next/server';

export async function POST() {
  const res = await fetch('https://data.mongodb-api.com/...', {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
      'API-Key': process.env.DATA_API_KEY,
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({ time: new Date().toISOString() }),
  });

  const data = await res.json();

  return NextResponse.json(data);
}

Note: Previously, API Routes could have been used for use cases like handling form submissions. Route Handlers are likely not the solution for these uses cases. We will be recommending the use of mutations for this when ready.

Route Resolution

You can consider a route the lowest level routing primitive.

• They do not participate in layouts or client-side navigations like page.
• There cannot be a route.js file at the same route as page.js.

Each route.js or page.js file takes over all HTTP verbs for that route.

// `app/page.js`
export default function Page() {
  return <h1>Hello, Next.js!</h1>;
}

// ❌ Conflict
// `app/route.js`
export async function POST(request) {}

Examples

The following examples show how to combine Route Handlers with other Next.js APIs and features.

Revalidating Static Data

You can revalidate static data fetches using the next.revalidate option:

import { NextResponse } from 'next/server';

export async function GET() {
  const res = await fetch('https://data.mongodb-api.com/...', {
    next: { revalidate: 60 } // Revalidate every 60 seconds
  });
  const data = await res.json();

  return NextResponse.json(data)
}

Alternatively, you can use the revalidate segment config option:

export const revalidate = 60;

Dynamic Functions

Route Handlers can be used with dynamic functions from Next.js, like cookies and headers.

Cookies

You can read cookies with cookies from next/headers. This server function can be called directly in a Route Handler, or nested inside of another function.

This cookies instance is read-only. To set cookies, you need to return a new Response using the Set-Cookie header.

import { cookies } from 'next/headers'

export async function GET(request: Request) {
  const cookieStore = cookies();
  const token = cookieStore.get('token');

  return new Response('Hello, Next.js!', {
    status: 200,
    headers: { 'Set-Cookie': `token=${token}` }
  });
}

Alternatively, you can use abstractions on top of the underlying Web APIs to read cookies (NextRequest):

import { type NextRequest } from 'next/server'

export async function GET(request: NextRequest) {
  const token = request.cookies.get('token')
}

Headers

You can read headers with headers from next/headers. This server function can be called directly in a Route Handler, or nested inside of another function.

This headers instance is read-only. To set headers, you need to return a new Response with new headers.

import { headers } from 'next/headers';

export async function GET(request: Request) {
  const headersList = headers();
  const referer = headersList.get('referer');

  return new Response('Hello, Next.js!', {
    status: 200,
    headers: { 'referer': referer }
  });
}

Alternatively, you can use abstractions on top of the underlying Web APIs to read headers (NextRequest):

import { type NextRequest } from 'next/server'

export async function GET(request: NextRequest) {
  const requestHeaders = new Headers(request.headers)
}

Redirects

import { redirect } from 'next/navigation';

export async function GET(request: Request) {
  redirect('https://nextjs.org/')
}

Dynamic Route Segments

We recommend reading the Defining Routes page before continuing.

Route Handlers can use Dynamic Segments to create request handlers from dynamic data.

export async function GET(request, { params }) {
  const slug = params.slug; // 'a', 'b', or 'c'
}

Note: Using generateStaticParams() is not yet supported for use with Route Handlers.

Streaming

// https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/ReadableStream#convert_async_iterator_to_stream
function iteratorToStream(iterator: any) {
  return new ReadableStream({
    async pull(controller) {
      const { value, done } = await iterator.next()

      if (done) {
        controller.close()
      } else {
        controller.enqueue(value)
      }
    },
  })
}

function sleep(time) {
  return new Promise((resolve) => {
    setTimeout(resolve, time)
  })
}

const encoder = new TextEncoder()

async function* makeIterator() {
  yield encoder.encode('<p>One</p>')
  await sleep(200)
  yield encoder.encode('<p>Two</p>')
  await sleep(200)
  yield encoder.encode('<p>Three</p>')
}

export async function GET() {
  const iterator = makeIterator()
  const stream = iteratorToStream(iterator)

  return new Response(stream)
}

Request Body

You can read the Request body using the standard Web API methods:

import { NextResponse } from 'next/server';

export async function POST(request: Request) {
  const res = await request.json();
  return NextResponse.json({ res })
}

Edge and Node.js Runtimes

Route Handlers have an isomorphic Web API to support both Edge and Node.js runtimes seamlessly, including support for streaming. Since Route Handlers use the same route segment configuration as pages and layouts, they support long-awaited features like general-purpose statically regenerated Route Handlers.

You can use the runtime segment config option to specify the runtime:

export const runtime = 'experimental-edge';

robots.txt, rss.xml, and sitemap.xml

You can use Route Handlers to return non-UI content such as robots.txt, rss.xml, and sitemap.xml.

export async function GET() {
  return new Response(`User-agent: *
Allow: /

Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml`);
}

Segment Config Options

Route Handlers use the same route segment configuration as pages and layouts.

export const dynamic = 'auto'
export const dynamicParams = true
export const revalidate = false
export const fetchCache = 'auto'
export const runtime = 'nodejs'
export const preferredRegion = 'auto'

See the API reference for more details.

Next Steps