v3.4 Release Notes

Welcome to gatsby@3.4.0 release (April 2021 #2)

Key highlights of this release:

• Experimental: Enable webpack persistent caching for production builds - significantly speed up webpack compilation on subsequent builds
• Experimental: Gatsby Functions - serverless functions in Gatsby & Gatsby Cloud
• New Aggregation Resolvers - adds min(), max(), and sum() resolvers to allX queries
• Better Fast Refresh handling for styling libraries - Theme UI and Chakra UI now work correctly with Fast Refresh

Also check out notable bugfixes.

Bleeding Edge: Want to try new features as soon as possible? Install gatsby@next and let us know if you have any issues.

Previous release notes

Full changelog

Experimental: Enable webpack persistent caching for production builds

webpack 5 introduced built in persistent caching. It allows webpack to reuse result of previous compilations and significantly speed up compilation steps.

To use it, add a flag to your gatsby-config.js:

Details and discussion.

Experimental: Functions

We’re making our initial alpha release of serverless functions in Gatsby!

• Details and discussion
• Original PR.
• Sign up for early access to Functions in Gatsby Cloud.

New Aggregation Resolvers

The PR #30789 added new aggregation resolvers similar to the already existing group and distinct resolvers. You now can use min(), max(), and sum(). They support numeric fields, but also attempt to cast non-numeric fields and includes them if the value is not NaN.

An example query:

Better Fast Refresh handling for styling libraries

Since the introduction of Fast Refresh changes to theme files both in Theme UI and Chakra UI didn’t result in correct hot-reloading behavior as the user had to manually reload the page to see their changes. The PR #30901 added better Fast Refresh handling for components that don’t satisfy the constraints set by Fast Refresh but it didn’t completely fix the incorrect behavior in both plugins. Upstream PRs from us to Theme UI and Chakra UI fixed the behavior! Install theme-ui@^0.7.1 or @chakra-ui/gatsby-plugin@^2.0.0 to get the updates.

Notable bugfixes & improvements

• Fixed page context changes not triggering query rerunning PR #28590
• Fixed not being able to disable DEV_SSR flag when FAST_DEV is enabled PR #30992
• Speed up createPages by ~10% by memoizing process.env access PR #30768
• You now can define the --host option of gatsby-cli with env.HOST PR #26712
• Allow CI AWS lamba builds PR #30653
• File System Route API: De-dupe collection pages PR #31016

Contributors

A big Thank You to our community who contributed to this release 💜

• gustavo-a: fix(gatsby-source-wordpress): change console.warning to console.warn PR #30764

• NatnaelSisay: Fix: change attribute name PR #30800

• evildmp: chore(docs): Update links to Diátaxis framework PR #30808

• hoobdeebla: fix(renovate): add breaking minor updates to major updates list PR #30676

• Js-Brecht

  • fix(gatsby-core-utils): fetch-remote-file download failure when missing content-length header PR #30810
  • handle plugin parentDir resolution in resolvePlugin() PR #30812
  • fix(gatsby): “Cannot find module ‘babel-preset-gatsby’” error PR #30813

• herecydev: fix(gatsby): Decode base path in runtime PR #30682

• axe312ger

  • Refactor: using-contentful to use gatsby-plugin-image exclusively PR #30717
  • feat(contentful): warn users when using restricted content type names PR #30715
  • test: introduce e2e tests for Contentful PR #30390
  • test: Add Contentful content rendering to E2E tests PR #30854
  • test(contentful): improve content reference snapshot tests PR #31008

• kaboumk: fix(gatsby-starter-wordpress-blog): Fix altText PR #30832

• johndavidcooley: chore(docs): Fix typo PR #30858

• AbdallahAbis: chore(gatsby-plugin-image): Remove version note PR #30758

• pvorozhe: chore: Add cloud hosting option for starter READMEs PR #30792

• pelleknaap: Fix small typo PR #30911

• mgurevin: fix(gatsby-cli): added HOST environment variable PR #26712

• VMBindraban: chore(gatsby-source-graphql): Update README url => uri PR #30872

• OdysLam: chore(docs): Add tailwind to more options at tutorial part 2 PR #30910

• moonmeister: breaking(gatsby-plugin-sitemap): vNext rewrite PR #25670

• AcademicHumber: Change the ‘idKey’ parameter’s default value PR #30502

• kennethormandy: chore(gatsby-plugin-mdx): Document CommonMark option PR #30669

• mathisobadia: fix(gatsby): change order of feedbackDisabled checks to allow CI AWS lambda build PR #30653

• MichaelDeBoey: chore(gatsby-plugin-flow): Add pluginOptionsSchema validation PR #27599

• chrish-d: chore(docs): Updated warning icon to use emoji PR #30979

• jcalcaben: fix(gatsby-plugin-mdx): Reference style links broken in static builds PR #30967