app.config.ts · Nuxt Directory Structure

Nuxt 3 provides an app.config config file to expose reactive configuration within your application with the ability to update it at runtime within lifecycle or using a nuxt plugin and editing it with HMR (hot-module-replacement).

You can easily provide runtime app configuration using app.config.ts file. It can have either of .ts, .js, or .mjs extensions.

app.config.ts

export default defineAppConfig
({
  foo
: 'bar'
})

Do not put any secret values inside app.config file. It is exposed to the user client bundle.

Usage

To expose config and environment variables to the rest of your app, you will need to define configuration in app.config file.

app.config.ts

export default defineAppConfig
({
  theme
: {
    primaryColor
: '#ababab'
  }
})

When adding theme to the app.config, Nuxt uses Vite or webpack to bundle the code. We can universally access theme both when server-rendering the page and in the browser using useAppConfig composable.

pages/index.vue

<script setup lang="ts">
const appConfig = useAppConfig()

console.log(appConfig.theme)
</script>

When configuring a custom srcDir, make sure to place the app.config file at the root of the new srcDir path.

Typing App Config

Nuxt tries to automatically generate a TypeScript interface from provided app config so you won't have to type it yourself.

However, there are some cases where you might want to type it yourself. There are two possible things you might want to type.

App Config Input

AppConfigInput might be used by module authors who are declaring what valid input options are when setting app config. This will not affect the type of useAppConfig().

index.d.ts

declare module 'nuxt/schema' {
  interface AppConfigInput {
    /** Theme configuration */
    theme?: {
      /** Primary app color */
      primaryColor?: string
    }
  }
}

// It is always important to ensure you import/export something when augmenting a type
export {}

App Config Output

If you want to type the result of calling useAppConfig(), then you will want to extend AppConfig.

Be careful when typing AppConfig as you will overwrite the types Nuxt infers from your actually defined app config.

index.d.ts

declare module 'nuxt/schema' {
  interface AppConfig {
    // This will entirely replace the existing inferred `theme` property
    theme: {
      // You might want to type this value to add more specific types than Nuxt can infer,
      // such as string literal types
      primaryColor?: 'red' | 'blue'
    }
  }
}

// It is always important to ensure you import/export something when augmenting a type
export {}

Merging Strategy

Nuxt uses a custom merging strategy for the AppConfig within the layers of your application.

This strategy is implemented using a Function Merger, which allows defining a custom merging strategy for every key in app.config that has an array as value.

The function merger can only be used in the extended layers and not the main app.config in project.

Here's an example of how you can use:

export default defineAppConfig
({
  // Default array value
  array
: ['hello'],
})

.nuxtignore

The .nuxtignore file lets Nuxt ignore files in your project’s root directory during the build phase.

app.vue

The app.vue file is the main component of your Nuxt application.