Law Journal
A highly optimized Next.js blog that eliminates CMS costs by engineering a custom adapter for Google Sheets and Drive, featuring ISR for static performance and dynamic content updates.
Timeline
TBD
Role
Full Stack Developer
Team
Solo
Status
CompletedWhat Users Can Do
Headless Google Sheets CMS: Custom adapter transforming raw spreadsheet rows into fully typed content.
Zero-Cost Asset Hosting: Clever URL transformation to use Google Drive as a CDN for blog images.
Incremental Static Regeneration: Configured via ISR to serve static HTML that updates automatically every minute.
Type-Safe Architecture: Full TypeScript implementation extending from the API layer to React components.
Tech Stack
- Nextjs
- TypeScript
- Reactjs
- Tailwind
- Motion
- Vercel
- Google Sheets
- Google Drive
Challenges I Faced
engineered a middleware layer to safely map untyped 2D arrays to typed interfaces.
Reverse-engineered Google Drive URLs to create a regex translater for serving images directly.
Implemented server-side caching with ISR to reduce Google API calls by over 95%.
How I Overcame Them
Deepened understanding of Next.js 15 App Router and server-side data fetching/caching.
Mastered Service Account Authentication for secure GCP server-to-server requests.
Applied the Adapter Pattern to bridge incompatible Google Sheets data with modern UI.