Jumpstart Jamstack Development

Leverage Jamstack principles, techniques, and best practices to build dynamic websites and web apps focused on speed, security, and accessibility

Key Features

• Understand how JavaScript integrates with reusable application program interfaces (APIs) and browser markup to build a serverless web application
• Gain a solid understanding of static site development with Gatsby and its importance in Jamstack
• Find out how to deploy a Jamstack event website directly from GitHub using Netlify

Book Description

Jamstack (JavaScript, API, and Markup) enables web developers to create and publish modern and maintainable websites and web apps focused on speed, security, and accessibility by using tools such as Gatsby, Sanity, and Netlify. Developers working with Jamstack will be able to put their knowledge to good use with this practical guide to static site generation and content management. This Jamstack book takes a hands-on approach to implementation and related methodologies that will have you up and running with modern web development in no time.

Complete with step-by-step explanations of essential concepts, practical examples, and self-assessment questions, you'll begin by building an event and venue schema structure, and then expand the functionality, exploring all that the Jamstack has to offer. You'll learn how an example Jamstack is built, build structured content using Sanity to create a schema, use GraphQL to expose the content, and employ Gatsby to build an event website using page and template components and Tailwind CSS Framework. Lastly, you'll deploy the website to both, a Netlify server and the Microsoft Static Web Apps Service, and interact with it using Amazon Alexa.

By the end of this book, you'll have gained the knowledge and skills you need to install, configure, build, extend, and deploy a simple events website using Jamstack.

What you will learn

• Discover the Jamstack approach and build speedy, secure, and accessible websites and web apps with its component technologies
• Build an events website by using the Jamstack and the Gatsby static site generator
• Create and modify your templates and pages to build creative web apps
• Build, modify, and extend structured content schemas in Sanity
• Understand Gatsby plugins, project structure, and files, and how it can be used to build Jamstack apps
• Find out how GatsbyJS uses GraphQL to source content

Who this book is for

This book is for web developers looking to implement Jamstack practically. JavaScript developers who want to build modern speedy and secure web apps will also find this book useful. Familiarity with JavaScript and Database programming is assumed.

Table of Contents

1. History of the Jamstack
2. Introduction to Sanity
3. Exploring Sanity Studio
4. Sanity Configuration and Schemas
5. Sanity's GROQ Language
6. Sanity's GraphQL Playground
7. Gatsby – An Introduction
8. Gatsby and GraphQL
9. Gatsby Source Plugins
10. Building Gatsby Components
11. APIs – Extending Gatsby
12. APIs – Alexa Skills
13. Tying It All Together
14. Deployment Using Netlify and Azure
15. Conclusion

Christopher Pecoraro has been a senior software developer, speaker, and open source enthusiast since 1999 with experience in software development with a focus on web applications, apps, and content management systems.

Vincenzo Gambino has been a software developer since 2007. He started in Palermo, Italy, and is now based in London, UK. He has developed software and web applications for government departments and many educational entities, including one of the major universities in the United Kingdom. He is focused on web applications, virtual assistant apps, and content management systems.