How to exclude a folder from building next js but still read from it?

Question

I have a folder with many json files. I want to exclude it from the build as it increases the build size. But I also need to get the data from these files and it can't be stored in the database. Is there any way to achieve this?

I tried excluding the folder in next.config.js but couldn't find any changes

Answer 1

First, you need to exclude the folders in next.config.js, assuming all the data you need to exclude is in the data folder:

const nextConfig = {
  // ...
  exclude: ['data'],
};

Secondly, you need to import the data folder using require in order to use json data:

const users = require('./data/users.json');