Is it possible to disable API routes?

[wescopeland]

We currently have a back-end implemented with Java, but we're wanting to host the front-end using Next.js.

Is it possible to disable API routes so calls to /api/... are fallen through rather than caught by the Next.js server? I'm having a hard time finding anything on the docs about such a setting.

[dheeraj-p]

What if you don't have a /api directory at all?

[wescopeland]

Unfortunately, this just causes Next.js to throw errors about certain api routes not existing, which is certainly a sensible default!

[Janpot]

If you want to proxy all /api/... calls to another backend, you should be able to use rewrites for that: #9081

[wescopeland]

This is the solution we're going to look into, thank you very much for pointing us in this direction!

[japem]

I know it's 2 years later but... what about for local development? My browser blocks CORS requests when I do this. In production it's not a problem, since the same origin will be used for my file servers and (non-Next.js) API routes, but my browser will refuse to follow a redirect to a service running locally on a different port from Next.js.

[ingoclaro]

you could have a reverse proxy in front to do that routing for you. nginx is a good one, but anything that you are familiar with would work.
This would also avoid having the api requests pass trough next/node, freeing up the app resources for only frontend requests

[wescopeland]

Thanks all for your help. We're going to look into both the path rewrites and using Nginx as a reverse proxy.

[amsimoes]

@Janpot what happens if I rewrite requests to source: "/:path*" (instead of "/api/...") to another backend?

Just because it would be easier to do some testing and switching around between environments.

[Janpot]

It should be possible to do so. Have you tried:

{ source: "/api/:path*", destination: "https://another-backend/:path*" }

[themagicalmammal]

I have done this i am getting two problems with this.

1. (node:295543) [DEP0060] DeprecationWarning: The util._extend API is deprecated. Please use Object.assign() instead.
   (Use node --trace-deprecation ... to show where the warning was created)

2. /api routing works fine but /api/<anything_else> completely fails

[themagicalmammal]

{
source: '/api/:path*',
destination: ${backendBaseUrl}/api/:path*
}