Adding a Path Prefix

Many applications are hosted at something other than the root (/) of their domain.

For example, a Gatsby blog could live at example.com/blog/, or a site could be hosted on GitHub Pages at example.github.io/my-gatsby-site/.

Each of these sites needs a prefix added to all paths on the site. So a link to /my-sweet-blog-post/ should be rewritten as /blog/my-sweet-blog-post.

In addition, links to various resources (JavaScript, CSS, images, and other static content) need the same prefix, so that the site continues to function correctly when served with the path prefix in place.

Adding the path prefix is a two step process, as follows:

Add to gatsby-config.js

Firstly, add a pathPrefix value to your gatsby-config.js.

Build

The final step is to build your application with either the --prefix-paths flag or PREFIX_PATHS environment variable, like so:

If this flag is not passed, Gatsby will ignore your pathPrefix and build the site as if hosted from the root domain.

Serve

Serve your application with the --prefix-paths flag, like so:

If this flag is not passed, Gatsby will ignore your pathPrefix.

In-app linking

Gatsby provides APIs and libraries to make using this feature seamless. Specifically, the Link component has built-in functionality to handle path prefixing.

For example, if you want to link to the location /page-2, but the actual link will be prefixed (e.g. /blog/page-2); you don’t need to hard code the prefix into your links. By using the Gatsby Link component, paths will automatically be prefixed with the pathPrefix value assigned in your gatsby-config.js file. If you later migrate away from using a path prefix, your links will still work seamlessly.

For example, when navigating to the page-2 location in the Link component below; the location will be automatically prefixed with your assigned pathPrefix value.

If you want to do programmatic/dynamic navigation, this is also possible! Expose the Gatsby navigate helper, and this too automatically handles path prefixing.

Add the path prefix to paths using withPrefix

For pathnames you construct manually, there’s a helper function, withPrefix that prepends your path prefix in production (but doesn’t during development where paths don’t need to be prefixed).

Additional considerations

The assetPrefix feature can be thought of as semi-related to this feature. That feature allows your assets (non-HTML files, e.g. images, JavaScript, etc.) to be hosted on a separate domain, for example a CDN.

This feature works seamlessly with assetPrefix. Build out your application with the --prefix-paths flag and you’ll be well on your way to hosting an application with its assets hosted on a CDN, and its core functionality available behind a path prefix.