My Gita web app: Regular app backend data service is not working and so using simpler backend data service
Jump to Resetting app to regular functionality
- Details: An error occurred in the Server Components render. The specific message is omitted in production builds to avoid leaking sensitive details. A digest property is included on this error instance which may provide additional details about the nature of the error.
Resetting app to regular functionality
2025-12-01 17:44:16.442 [error] Error: Failed to fetch all chapters from data source (GraphQL endpoint): https://gql.bhagavadgita.io/graphql at l (/var/task/.next/server/app/page.js:15:117) at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:95:5) at async l (/var/task/.next/server/app/page.js:75:329) { digest: '2358542878' }
❓ Static with respect to what routes?
There are two types of routes:
1️⃣ Static routes
Examples:
-
/ -
/about -
/chaptersummaries
These can be statically rendered easily.
2️⃣ Dynamic routes
Examples:
-
/chapter/[chapternumber] -
/verse/[id]
For these, Next.js needs to know every possible value of chambernumber and id at build time.
❗ If you want all chapters/verses/commentators to be static…
You MUST:
-
Provide a list of ALL chapter numbers
-
Provide a list of ALL verse IDs
-
Provide a list of ALL commentators
-
Provide a list of ALL translators
And Next.js will generate:
-
/chapter/1 -
/chapter/2 -
…
-
/verse/1 -
/verse/2 -
…
-
/commentary/1 -
…
BUT:
Next.js can only do this if you provide:
for each dynamic route.
And inside those functions, you must fetch ALL required data.
❌ Why this is usually not feasible
If your GraphQL backend is down:
-
Next.js cannot generate ANY static pages that require data.
-
Static generation will fail.
Even if backend is up:
-
The dataset may be too big.
-
You may not want to regenerate thousands of pages on every build.
-
GraphQL rate limits may slow down build.
Even though your old deployment prerendered only 2 static routes, the build process STILL evaluates every route during the build.
And those route evaluations can fail if the backend is down.
Let me explain clearly.
✅ Key Insight:
Next.js App Router always evaluates routes during build — even if they end up being dynamic.
Meaning:
-
A route does not have to be static to cause build-time backend calls.
-
The build process runs the server component tree once for each route to decide if it can be static.
-
If that code fetches data unconditionally, then the build fails.
This is exactly what is happening now.
📌 Your current code path (in main branch) always fetches GraphQL in Server Components
Your homepage route:
app/page.tsx → ChapterTiles → getAllChapters()
All these are server components (no "use client"), and getAllChapters() contains this:
const { data } = await client.query(...)
This executes synchronously during build route evaluation.
So during build, Next.js tries:
-
Load the
/route -
Execute your server components
-
They call the GraphQL backend
-
Backend is down
-
Build fails
❗ But wait — didn’t / previously generate as dynamic (ƒ)?
Yes — but this is after Next.js evaluates the route.
The process is:
Build starts
↓
Next.js loads each route
↓
Next.js executes the server component code ONCE to determine:
- can it be static?
- does it require dynamic rendering?
↓
If it throws an error → build fails
So even if the final decision is “this route is dynamic,”
Next.js still runs your server component once at build time.
And that run is what fails.
This is why:
✔ Old code built successfully last year (backend was UP)
❌ Same code fails today (backend is DOWN)
⭐ Summary
Your question:
If only icon and not_found are static, why does the build fail with the current code?
Answer:
Because Next.js evaluates all routes at build time to see if they can be static.
During this evaluation, it executes your server components.
Your server components fetch data from the backend immediately.
Backend is down → evaluation fails → build fails.
Even if the route is later marked as dynamic (ƒ),
the evaluation step still runs and still fails.
✔ How export const dynamic = "force-dynamic" fixes it
When placed in app/layout.tsx, it tells Next.js:
“Do NOT evaluate any routes for static render.
Treat EVERYTHING as dynamic immediately.”
So:
-
Next.js skips evaluating server components at build time
-
It does NOT fetch backend during build
-
Build succeeds even if backend is down
-
But all routes run at runtime, not build time
Here’s a precise evaluation of each step:
✅ 1. force-dynamic on app/layout.tsx
export const dynamic = "force-dynamic";
✔ Forces all routes to be dynamically rendered
✔ Prevents ANY build-time backend calls
✔ Avoids build failures when your GraphQL API is offline
✔ Still works fast on Vercel because serverless is inexpensive
This is a good choice for your app because all meaningful content comes from the backend anyway.
✅ 2. Catch errors inside ChapterTiles (and rethrow)
Best design:
-
ChapterTilesshould be a pure data loader component -
If GraphQL fetch fails → throw a meaningful error up
Example (good pattern):
export default async function ChapterTiles() {
try {
const data = await getAllChapters();
return <Tiles chapters={data.allGitaChapters} />;
} catch (err) {
console.error("Error fetching chapters:", err);
throw err; // Important: bubble up to parent
}
}
✔ Clean
✔ Keeps all “deciding what to show” logic in the page, not in low-level components
✅ 3. Home page catches errors & shows graceful “backend down” UI
This is exactly right.
Example pattern:
export default async function HomePage() {
try {
return (
<main>
<ChapterTiles />
</main>
);
} catch (err) {
return (
<main className="p-4 text-center">
<h1 className="text-xl font-bold">Service Unavailable</h1>
<p className="mt-2">
Our backend data service seems to be temporarily unavailable.
</p>
<p className="text-sm mt-1 text-gray-600">
Please try again in a few minutes.
</p>
</main>
);
}
}
✔ Avoids mysterious white screens / generic Next.js error
✔ Gives the user a friendly explanation
✔ The app still deploys correctly even if backend is offline
✅ 4. If no error → show normal UI
Exactly correct.
The user sees the functional app only if GraphQL responds normally.
✔️ Summary: Your design is perfect
Your approach gives you:
| Requirement | Achieved? | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment works even if backend is down | Yes | force-dynamic prevents build eval |
| App shows graceful message instead of crash | Yes | Catch errors in page component |
| Only try backend calls at runtime | Yes | No static rendering attempted |
| No accidental SSG of pages depending on backend | Yes | Entire app dynamic |
✅ How to convert JSON data into a GraphQL endpoint
If you have static JSON files (say translations, commentaries, verses, etc.), you can quickly spin up a GraphQL server on top of them. Here are a few of the easiest ways:
Option A: Use json-graphql-server (zero or minimal code)
-
The
json-graphql-servernpm package lets you turn a plain JSON object into a working GraphQL API with almost no coding. (npm) -
Basic workflow:
-
Create a JSON object (or more commonly, a JS module exporting an object) where keys are “entity types” and values are arrays of data.
For example:
// db.js module.exports = { verses: [ { id: 1, chapter: 1, verse: 1, text: "...", translation: "..." }, { id: 2, chapter: 1, verse: 2, text: "...", translation: "..." }, // ... ], commentaries: [ { id: 1, verseId: 1, author: "Some Guru", comment: "..." }, // ... ], // … other collections };-
Run the server with one command:
npx json-graphql-server db.jsThis starts a GraphQL server (e.g. at
http://localhost:3000/graphql) with auto-generated types, queries (likeallVerses,Verse, etc.), even filtering, pagination, mutations if you like. (npm)
3. Use that as your backend; point your Next.js (or React) frontend to the GraphQL endpoint. -
-
Pros: Very fast to get started; no database required; minimal code.
-
Cons: For large datasets, storing everything in memory may not scale; no real database features (transactions, indexing, relational constraints). Also, no built-in authentication or advanced features.
Because your Gita dataset is relatively static (just verses and commentaries), this might be a good fit — especially for a small/medium-sized dataset.
Option B: Use a more full-fledged GraphQL + database setup
If you want scalability, querying power, maybe future additions (e.g., user annotations, bookmarking), you could load the JSON into a real database (e.g., PostgreSQL or even SQLite) and run a Node.js GraphQL server (e.g., Apollo Server, or GraphQL Yoga) over it.
Steps:
-
Load JSON into a database — e.g., write a one-time script that reads the JSON and inserts into DB tables (verses, commentaries, etc.).
-
Define a GraphQL schema (types for Verse, Commentary; queries for
verse(chapter, verseNumber),versesByChapter(chapter), etc.). -
Use a GraphQL server library (Apollo Server, GraphQL Yoga, etc.) to serve the schema.
This gives you more control (indexes, efficient queries, relations, possibly mutations), but requires more initial work.
Option C: Use a schema-generator tool + then host with any GraphQL server
If you want a starting point, there are tools that can generate a GraphQL schema from JSON automatically. For example, json-to-graphql (though it's old) can take JSON and output schema definitions. (npm)
You can then import that schema into an Apollo Server (or other GraphQL server) and serve it. This is useful if your JSON has nested or more complex structure, and you want type definitions generated automatically rather than hand-writing them.
🚀 Where to host this (for free or very low cost)
Since your Gita app is likely modest in usage, many free-tier or hobby-tier platforms are perfect. Here are some good choices:
| Hosting Solution | Notes / Pros |
|---|---|
| Render | Free Web Service tier supports Node.js apps. Good for running an Express + GraphQL server. (MakeUseOf) |
| Cyclic | Serverless-like hosting; free tier for small APIs. Good for JSON-based GraphQL. (MakeUseOf) |
| Railway | Simple deployment; supports databases too — good if you load JSON into PostgreSQL. (MakeUseOf) |
| Deta Space | Fully free for small projects and simple web services. (MakeUseOf) |
| Fly.io | Free “allowance” for small services; simple VM containers — good for Node.js + GraphQL. (MakeUseOf) |
| Hasura + Postgres (self-hosted or via free tier DB) | If you load the JSON into Postgres, you can use Hasura GraphQL Engine to instantly expose a full GraphQL API over your data — no extra backend code required. (Medium) |
-
Hasura route: Many people use Hasura to wrap relational data (Postgres) into GraphQL automatically. It’s very powerful if you want to extend beyond simple JSON → GraphQL. (OpenApps)
-
Container-based hosts (Render, Fly.io, Railway, etc.): Great if you want to control the GraphQL server yourself (e.g., custom resolvers, maybe authentication, custom logic).
💡 What I recommend for your Gita app (given your context)
Since:
-
Your data is mostly static (verses, translations, commentaries),
-
You just need a simple GraphQL API to make your Next.js frontend work again,
-
You likely prefer minimal effort so you can get back to the UI / features (dark mode, responsive layout, etc.),
I would recommend Option A: use json-graphql-server + deploy on a free platform like Render or Cyclic.
Why: It’s the quickest — likely within one evening, you can have a working GraphQL endpoint returning Gita data, and point your Next.js app to it. No need to manage a database, no need to write boilerplate resolvers.
If later you want to expand (e.g., add user bookmarks, notes, search with indexing, multi-language support, etc.), you can always migrate to a more robust setup (e.g., Postgres + Hasura or Apollo).
⚠️ Some caveats & things to watch out for
-
With
json-graphql-server, all data lives in memory — for large data or many requests, performance / memory usage may become an issue. -
If you store large text (commentaries, verses), make sure your server limits (RAM) on free tier are adequate.
-
No built-in authentication or rate limiting with the simple JSON server — if your API becomes public and popular, you may need to add security.
-
Some free hosts “sleep” your server when idle, causing a “cold start” delay for first requests after inactivity. (Reddit)
If you like, I can sketch a full folder + file layout (a minimal package.json, db.js, server file, instructions) for you — you can just clone, paste your Gita JSON, deploy, and immediately get a working GraphQL endpoint.
Do you want me to build that skeleton for you now?
data.ts, I can confirm your app is using GraphQL in a very “REST-like” way, and you can convert it to REST API calls without losing functionality.✅ Host your own JSON dataset (on GitHub)
✅ Serve your own REST API
→ Your Gita app becomes fully independent of any external API.
And the good news:
⭐ It is VERY easy to serve a REST API directly from a GitHub-hosted JSON dataset
You can get a fully working REST backend in 5–10 minutes.
Let me outline the three best options, then I’ll recommend the simplest one for your case.
🥇 **BEST METHOD (Easiest + Free + Stable):
Use GitHub + jsDelivr CDN + a lightweight REST API wrapper**
You can:
-
Put the JSON files in a GitHub repo (yours).
-
Load those JSON files directly via CDN URLs like:
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/<username>/<repo>/<path-to-json> -
Build a tiny REST API (Node.js + Express) that:
-
fetches JSON from CDN at runtime or
-
loads JSON locally baked into the server bundle
-
-
Deploy the REST API on a free host:
-
Render
-
Cyclic
-
Railway
-
Deta Space
-
Vercel (if using Edge Functions)
-
This gives you a 100% independent backend.
🟦 Let’s evaluate your dataset
You shared:
👉 https://github.com/bhavykhatri/DharmicData/tree/main/SrimadBhagvadGita
That dataset includes:
-
Sanskrit text
-
transliteration
-
word-by-word meaning
-
translations
-
commentaries
Perfect for your use-case.
✔️ What REST endpoints we will create
Matching your current GraphQL needs exactly:
GET /chapters
Returns:
-
id
-
chapterNumber
-
versesCount
-
summaries
GET /chapter/:chapterNumber
Returns:
-
chapter info
-
list of verses
-
each verse with selected translation (configurable)
GET /verse/:verseId
Returns:
-
text
-
transliteration
-
wordMeanings
-
all translations
-
all commentaries
Exactly the structure your frontend expects.
⭐ Most important:
You do not need a database at all.
Your entire Bhagavad Gita dataset is static.
So a simple JSON → REST API is perfect.
🧱 Folder Structure I will create for you (example)
gita-api/
data/
chapters.json
verses.json
translations.json
commentaries.json
server.js
package.json
server.js will expose:
/chapters
/chapter/:chapterNumber
/verse/:id
And read the JSON files from your repo (baked into the deployment).
🔥 The server will be extremely small
Example (this is only a preview):
import express from "express";
import chapters from "./data/chapters.json";
import verses from "./data/verses.json";
import translations from "./data/translations.json";
import commentaries from "./data/commentaries.json";
const app = express();
app.get("/chapters", (req, res) => res.json({ chapters }));
app.get("/chapter/:num", (req, res) => {
const num = Number(req.params.num);
const chVerses = verses.filter(v => v.chapterNumber === num);
res.json({ chapter: { ...chapters[num-1], verses: chVerses }});
});
app.get("/verse/:id", (req, res) => {
const id = Number(req.params.id);
const verse = verses.find(v => v.id === id);
const tr = translations.filter(t => t.verseId === id);
const cm = commentaries.filter(c => c.verseId === id);
res.json({
verse: {
...verse,
translations: tr,
commentaries: cm
}
});
});
app.listen(3000);
This is all you need.
🟩 Hosting Options (Free + Recommended)
⭐ Render Free Web Service
-
Very stable
-
No credit card
-
Perfect for small Express APIs
⭐ Cyclic
-
Automatically redeploys on GitHub push
-
Perfect for small JSON APIs
⭐ Railway
-
Very simple deployment
-
Free tier works for your size
⭐ Deta Space
-
Forever free
-
Serverless functions
-
Great for small APIs
🎉 Result
You will get a permanent, self-hosted REST API such as:
https://gita-api-iyer.onrender.com/chapters
https://gita-api-iyer.onrender.com/chapter/2
https://gita-api-iyer.onrender.com/verse/23
Your Next.js app becomes completely independent.
✔️ Next Step — Choose one
**A) I create the full REST API project for you
(Express, ready to deploy, using the dataset you linked)**
→ You just click “Deploy to Render”
B) You want me to inspect the dataset first and design the correct JSON structure
→ I examine the dataset files, decide the best structure, then write the API.
C) You want both REST + GraphQL versions (same JSON)
→ I generate both servers.
👉 Which do you prefer?
Let me break down the important points clearly:
✅ 1. GitHub Pages (github.io) can act as a REST API for static JSON files
GitHub Pages only hosts static files, but that is exactly what you need.
If you upload JSON files to a GitHub repo and enable GitHub Pages, then each JSON file becomes a public URL like:
https://<username>.github.io/<repo>/data/chapter/1.json
This is exactly what the vedicscriptures.github.io API is doing.
So yes — you can do the same:
✔ No server required
✔ No rate limits
✔ No uptime problems
✔ 100% free (forever)
✔ Extremely reliable (GitHub Pages rarely goes down)
✅ 2. How to turn your JSON dataset into a REST API (GitHub Pages)
Step A — Clone dataset
Take the JSON from:
https://github.com/bhavykhatri/DharmicData/tree/main/SrimadBhagvadGita
Copy the JSON folder into your own repo, e.g.:
/data/
/1.json
/2.json
...
/18.json
Or per verse:
/v/1/1.json
/v/1/2.json
...
Step B — Enable GitHub Pages
In your repo:
-
Settings → Pages
-
Select
Deploy from branch -
Branch:
main -
Folder:
/ (root) -
Save
Your API base URL becomes:
https://<your-username>.github.io/<repo>/
Step C — Access JSON as REST API
Example endpoint:
https://yourname.github.io/gita-api/data/1.json
Or per-verse:
https://yourname.github.io/gita-api/v/1/1.json
You now have your own permanent REST API.
✅ 3. Using this REST API in Next.js frontend
In your Next.js code:
const chapter = await fetch(
"https://yourname.github.io/gita-api/data/1.json"
).then(r => r.json());
✅ 4. Optional: Convert REST JSON → GraphQL
If you still want GraphQL, you can add a thin layer using:
GraphQL Mesh (recommended)
It can turn any REST API into GraphQL with zero code.
Code example
Create mesh.config.ts:
sources:
- name: Gita
handler:
jsonSchema:
baseUrl: "https://yourname.github.io/gita-api/data/"
Then run:
npx graphql-mesh serve
This creates a GraphQL endpoint that resolves REST → GraphQL.
Free hosting options for GraphQL Mesh
-
Vercel (best for Next.js + Mesh)
-
Render free tier
-
Railway free tier
These are enough because Mesh is lightweight.
⭐ Recommendation (Best & Simple Approach)
If your goal is:
-
100% independence
-
No reliance on other servers
-
Reliable long-term hosting
-
Zero cost
Then:
✔ Host the JSON on GitHub → use it as REST API
✔ Skip GraphQL (REST performance is actually faster)
✔ If you need GraphQL, deploy Mesh on Vercel
If you want, I can prepare:
✅ A sample repo structure
✅ A ready-to-use Gita REST API on GitHub
✅ Sample Mesh config for GraphQL
✅ Example Next.js client code
Just tell me which option(s) you want.
I can record how to create such a github.io static JSON server site using open source Bhagavad Gita data. That becomes a fallback option if https://vedicscriptures.github.io/ goes down.
What do u say?
CG: That is exactly the right plan — practical, lightweight, long-term, and fully under your control.
GitaChapter type definition, the issue is now 100% clear.Your backend returns a compact structure like:
But the VedicScriptures JSON for https://vedicscriptures.github.io/slok/1/1/ is NOT structured this way.
It is completely flattened by author, and the field names differ per author.
Here is the pattern:
✔ Single root object
No translations[], no commentaries[].
✔ Each author is a top-level key
Examples:
-
tej -
siva -
purohit -
chinmay -
san -
adi -
gambir -
… (about 20+ keys)
✔ Inside each key, the content varies!
Author keys have different field names:
| Author key | Fields you get |
|---|---|
tej | author, ht (Hindi translation) |
siva | author, et (English translation), ec (English commentary) |
purohit | author, et |
chinmay | author, hc (Hindi commentary) |
san | author, et |
| … | … |
There is no consistent naming.
Some keys have translations, some commentaries, some both.
📌 Summary
You did NOT miss anything — their format is completely different, and requires special parsing logic.
If you want, I can generate a unified adapter that converts any slok JSON (your backend / vedicscriptures / GitHub JSON sources) into one common structure so your UI stays the same.
Just say:
“Generate parser”
Ensuring Space Around Links in HTML (Notes for Future Reference)
Problem:
Inline elements like <a> collapse surrounding whitespace.
So a normal space written in the HTML source may not appear as expected — especially if the space is next to a line break or multiple spaces. This can cause the link to appear “stuck” to the previous or next word.
Solutions depending on the setup:
1. Using Tailwind CSS
-
Solution: Add horizontal margin to the link.
-
Example:
-
Why it works: Tailwind applies real CSS margins, so spacing is guaranteed.
2. Using Plain CSS (no Tailwind)
-
Solution: Add
margin-left/margin-rightvia CSS. -
Example:
-
Why it works: CSS margins create predictable spacing regardless of HTML whitespace collapsing.
3. Using Pure HTML With No CSS
-
Solution: Use
(non-breaking space) on each side of the link. -
Example:
-
Why it works:
never collapses, so spacing is always preserved.
Summary Table
| Scenario | Problem Solved | Best Method |
|---|---|---|
| Tailwind present | Prevent collapsed whitespace around links | class="mx-1" |
| Plain CSS | Need reliable spacing without depending on HTML whitespace | margin: 0 4px; |
| Pure HTML (no CSS at all) | Only HTML available, whitespace collapsing unavoidable | Use |
...
[I also disabled Settings menu item.]
✅ Recommended Approach (Best Practice)
➡️ Keep the main branch README focused on the main branch
The main branch is what visitors see first.
Its README should describe:
-
the intended, full-functionality version of your app
-
that it depends on the GQL backend (which is currently down)
-
and provide a short, prominent note pointing users to the working
datarestbranch
➡️ The datarest branch should have its own README describing the fallback/alternate version
This README should explain:
-
this is a limited-functionality version
-
uses the alternate REST/JSON backend
-
is kept temporarily active because the main backend is down
-
link back to the blog post if needed
✅ Key fact
Vercel always must have one production branch.
If you clear the value, Vercel automatically falls back to:
➡️ main (or master if the repo still uses that).
So leaving it blank will NOT work — it will switch back to main as the production branch and start building on every commit again.
But let me give you a clear, complete explanation:
✅ Will GitHub Pages have a problem with 78 parallel JSON fetches?
No — GitHub Pages can handle this easily.
✔ GitHub Pages serves static files over a CDN
Your https://vedicscriptures.github.io/... files are served through Fastly CDN, which is designed to handle thousands of concurrent requests.
Serving 78 small JSON files is trivial for it.
✔ Your traffic volume is extremely small
Even if your site had hundreds of users per day, each loading 78 small JSON objects, the load is still negligible for GitHub’s CDN.
✔ GitHub Pages has very high rate limits
GitHub rate limits API access, not static file serving.
Serving static files:
-
Has no documented request-per-second limit
-
Is intended for public websites
-
Is designed for browsers fetching many resources (HTML, JS, CSS, images, JSON, etc.)
78 JSON fetches is nothing compared to a typical web app that loads:
-
50+ JS chunks
-
40+ images
-
fonts
-
CSS files
-
map tiles
-
etc.
✔ Promise.all() parallel fetch is safe
Browsers naturally make multiple parallel downloads — often 6–10 per domain at a time — but CDNs and browsers manage the scheduling automatically.
Your 78 fetches will run smoothly because:
-
The browser will queue excess requests
-
GitHub CDN will respond quickly
-
No rate limits are triggered
⚠ The only practical concern
The total time for 78 sequential HTTP requests might be slightly slower than loading one big JSON file.
But:
-
Files are tiny
-
CDN is fast
-
Parallelism reduces total wait time
So even performance-wise, it's fine.
🟢 Final verdict
Your getChapter() implementation using Promise.all to fetch each verse JSON individually is completely safe.
GitHub Pages will not block, rate-limit, or complain about this level of parallel downloading.
You can proceed confidently.
You are not hitting the GitHub API at all.
Let me explain clearly:
✅ What you are calling is NOT GitHub API — it is GitHub Pages (static file hosting)
Your URL:
is served by GitHub Pages, which is:
-
just a static file CDN
-
equivalent to hosting JSON on Netlify, Vercel, S3, Firebase Hosting, Cloudflare Pages, etc.
-
not rate-limited like GitHub’s REST API (
https://api.github.com/...)
You are simply fetching a static JSON file from the repository’s gh-pages (or similar) branch.
This is public, cacheable, CDN-driven static content, not programmatic API usage.
❌ This is NOT GitHub API usage
GitHub API URLs look like:
Those have strict rate limits (60–5000 req/hr depending on auth).
Your URLs look like:
That is static file delivery — totally different system.
...
Me: That's very interesting. So what then are the limits for GitHub Pages?
CG: Here are the real limits for GitHub Pages — and importantly, you are far below all of them.
✅ 1. GitHub Pages traffic limit (soft limit): ~100 GB / month
GitHub does not enforce a strict hard limit, but the documented guideline is:
“GitHub Pages sites have a soft bandwidth limit of 100 GB/month.”
This is not enforced strictly — many people exceed it — but if a site massively exceeds it, GitHub may temporarily disable the site.
Your app?
Each JSON file is ~1–5 KB.
Even fetching 100 verses × 5 KB = 500 KB per user.
You would need:
100 GB / 0.5 MB ≈ 200,000 full chapter loads per month
You're nowhere near that.
✅ 2. Rate limits: No meaningful limits for normal traffic
GitHub Pages is served through Fastly CDN.
Fastly handles:
-
burst traffic
-
parallel requests
-
high concurrency
A single user loading 78 JSON files is trivial.
There is no request-per-hour restriction like GitHub API.
✅ 3. Request concurrency limit: High (not documented)
Browsers usually open:
-
6 parallel HTTP connections per domain
-
but with HTTP/2 (which GitHub Pages uses), all requests are multiplexed over 1 connection
So 78 JSON files load extremely fast and easily.
No throttling on GitHub's side.
⚠️ 4. File size limit
Each individual static file on GitHub Pages must be under:
1 GB per file (but effectively < 100 MB recommended)
Your files are ~1 KB → far below this.
⚠️ 5. CPU/memory
Not applicable — GitHub Pages serves only static files.
⚠️ 6. Abuse detection
GitHub may block a site if:
-
it behaves like a CDN for huge files
-
exceeds traffic by massive amounts
-
is used for file sharing
-
shows automated scraping patterns at high scale
But for a Bhagavad Gita app fetching small JSON files, this will never be an issue.
🟢 Conclusion: Your usage is safe
Your usage (multiple JSON fetches per chapter) fits perfectly within GitHub Pages' intended purpose:
-
lightweight static data
-
high redundancy through CDN
-
no API limits
-
no concurrency restrictions
-
fits within traffic guidelines
You can continue using GitHub Pages without worry.
If you want, I can also give you:
-
A strategy to reduce requests (optional)
-
How to cache data on the Next.js server
-
How to make the app work offline
Just let me know.
Are GitHub Pages limits independent of regular GitHub repo usage/limits?
I mean, if some GitHub Pages site exceeds the limit and gets stopped, will the associated GitHub account also be disabled for GitHub repo usage?
Here’s the clear and authoritative breakdown:
✅ GitHub Pages limits are separate from GitHub repo/account limits
GitHub treats Pages as a separate service from your normal repository hosting.
If a GitHub Pages site violates bandwidth limits or is disabled:
👉 Your GitHub account will NOT be banned.
👉 Your repositories will NOT be restricted.
👉 You will still be able to push, pull, commit, use issues, etc.
GitHub simply disables or rate-limits the Pages site only, not the whole account.
This is stated in multiple GitHub staff responses in discussions.
⚠️ What happens if a GitHub Pages site exceeds limits?
GitHub may take one of these actions only for Pages:
-
Temporarily disable the public Pages site
-
Send you a notice (email)
-
Ask you to reduce bandwidth or move to a paid hosting/CDN
-
In extreme cases, require you to convert to GitHub Enterprise Pages
But:
❌ They do not suspend the GitHub account
❌ They do not delete the repository
❌ They do not block git operations
The restriction applies only to:
https://username.github.io
https://orgname.github.io
https://project.github.io
Everything else continues normally.
🟢 Why they keep it separate
GitHub Pages is a free CDN service, but GitHub knows:
-
many repos use Pages for documentation
-
disabling repos would break developer workflows
-
repos are GitHub’s core product
-
Pages is a free add-on that can be restricted independently
So they isolate the two systems.
🪬 Worst-case scenario (very rare)
If a Pages site is used like a heavy CDN with huge bandwidth (tens of TB/month), GitHub might:
-
disable the Pages site
-
send a warning
-
ask to host static assets elsewhere (Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, Vercel)
But again:
Repos stay fully functional.
🟢 Bottom line
You can confidently use GitHub Pages for your JSON backend:
✔ Excess traffic will only affect the Pages site
✔ Your GitHub repos remain safe
✔ No risk of account suspension
✔ No impact on regular commits/pushes
If you want, I can also give you:
-
A simple caching strategy to reduce Pages traffic by 90%
-
A way to store all verses in one JSON file per chapter
-
Or a backup plan using Cloudflare Pages (also free, unlimited bandwidth)
Just tell me!
Me: Next general question: Can a small Node express server be hosted on GitHub Pages. I expect No as it is code and not static pages. But I wanted to be sure.
CG: Short answer: No — you cannot host a Node/Express server on GitHub Pages.
Here is the clear explanation:
❌ GitHub Pages cannot run server-side code
GitHub Pages supports only static hosting, meaning:
-
HTML
-
CSS
-
JavaScript (running in the browser only)
-
Images
-
JSON
-
Markdown
But it does not support:
-
Node.js
-
Express
-
Python / Django / Flask
-
PHP
-
Ruby
-
Databases
-
Any backend container
GitHub Pages has zero server-side execution capability.
Why it cannot run Express
A Node/Express app needs:
-
A running Node.js process
-
An ability to accept HTTP requests dynamically
-
A server environment
GitHub Pages is just a static CDN. It serves files from disk, nothing more.
So Express cannot run there.
Me: What then is GitHub api service? Is it a paid service which can be used for Node express servers?
CG: ...
✅ 1. GitHub API (REST / GraphQL APIs)
This is what developers use to read/write repo metadata, such as:
-
list issues
-
create a PR
-
read repo files
-
manage releases
-
automate CI/CD
✔️ It is not a hosting service for running Node/Express servers.
It only lets you interact with GitHub repositories.
Pricing
-
Free tier has rate limits (e.g., 60 requests/hour unauthenticated, 5,000 requests/hour authenticated).
-
Paid GitHub plans increase some limits, but none of them allow running servers.
Where the GitHub API is used
-
GitHub Actions
-
Tools like
npm,pnpm,brew, etc., when they fetch releases -
Third-party apps (e.g., GitHub Desktop, VSCode Git integration)
🔍 So what is GitHub API service for?
Examples:
Example 1 — Get the contents of a file
Example 2 — List commits
Example 3 — Create an issue
These are operational APIs for GitHub’s own data.
...
Let me lay out the reasoning clearly so that this becomes rock-solid.
✅ 1. Accessing raw JSON via GitHub API (not Pages)
You can fetch JSON directly from a GitHub repository using:
But this has drawbacks:
❗ Drawback #1 — Rate limits are very strict
-
Unauthenticated: 60 requests per hour
-
Authenticated: 5,000 per hour (requires creating a token, not ideal for client-side apps)
Your Verse-by-Verse Gita app could easily hit these limits if:
-
many users open chapters frequently
-
78 verses per chapter × many chapters × many users
This would lead to users getting 403 rate limited errors.
So you cannot depend on the GitHub API for public app users.
...
Me: When I use a git command like 'git push', the command would be using GitHub API I guess. If so, will that command's usage be counted for my rate limit for GitHub?
CG: Great question — and very important to understand correctly.
✅ Short answer
No, git push does NOT count against your GitHub API rate limits.
✅ Long answer (what git push actually uses)
When you run:
git push
you are not interacting with the GitHub REST API (which has strict rate limits like 60/hour).
Instead, you are using:
🔹 Git’s native protocol
-
either HTTPS Git protocol
-
or SSH Git protocol
These are completely separate from the GitHub REST API.
GitHub treats Git operations independently from the REST API rate limits.
✔️ Examples of what does not count toward API rate limits
-
git clone -
git fetch -
git pull -
git push -
LFS operations
-
Checking out branches
-
Listing commits (
git loglocally)
Git operations are unlimited for your own repositories.
✔️ What does count toward GitHub API rate limits
Only HTTP requests made to:
https://api.github.com/...
Using:
-
REST API
-
GraphQL API
-
curl requests
-
browser requests to API
-
GitHub Actions making API calls
-
Any app using the API endpoints
The rate limits (60/hour unauthenticated, 5000/hour authenticated) apply only to these API endpoints.
🧠 Key point
Even though GitHub internally uses services, Git operations and GitHub API are different services.
GitHub separates them so developers aren't rate-limited for normal Git usage.
...
====================
The new chat mentioned above is covered in my post: Creating Gita API: Static JSON files API hosted on GitHub Pages; Regular REST and GraphQL APIs using SQL DB - ChatGPT.
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