When will you use this?

You need this before writing any Next.js code — same as installing Node.js before opening a project.

• Every React/Next.js job expects you to run npx create-next-app and npm run dev on day one.
• Interviewers often ask you to explain the App Router folder structure and Server vs Client Components.

Real-world: LearnHub LMS

The EdTech / LMS team building LearnHub LMS uses Introduction to Next.js to ship fast, SEO-friendly React pages without configuring webpack and routing by hand. students and instructors never see the TypeScript files — they just get a fast, reliable course catalog, lesson player, and progress tracking.

Production-style code

// LearnHub — app/page.tsx (App Router)
export default function HomePage() {
  return (
    <main>
      <h1>LearnHub</h1>
      <p>Your courses, one click away.</p>
    </main>
  );
}

What happens in production: In LearnHub LMS, a solid Introduction to Next.js foundation lets the team ship course catalog, lesson player, and progress tracking on schedule without toolchain surprises.

Lesson example (start here)

Copy this smaller example first. Once it works, compare it with the real-world code above.

// app/page.tsx — LearnHub home
export default function HomePage() {
  return (
    <main>
      <h1>LearnHub</h1>
      <p>Learn Next.js by building a real LMS frontend.</p>
    </main>
  );
}

Line-by-line walkthrough

How it works (big picture)

• app/page.tsx is the home route (/).
• export default function defines the page component.
• Next.js compiles this to HTML on the server so students see content fast.
• No router config file — the folder name is the URL.

Do this on your computer

1. Install Node.js 20 LTS from https://nodejs.org
2. Run node --version and npm --version to confirm
3. In the next lesson you will run npx create-next-app@latest learnhub
4. Skim the App Router docs mentally — you will use app/ not pages/
5. Bookmark the LearnHub repo folder you will create
6. Read the real-world section and name which part of LearnHub uses this topic.
7. Run the example locally with npm run dev and confirm the same behavior.
8. Change one value in the example (route, text, or course id) and predict what will happen before you save.

Experiments — try changing this

• Change a string or route in the example and save — watch the browser update.
• Break the code on purpose (remove a bracket), read the error overlay, then fix it.

Remember

Next.js = React + routing + server rendering + production tooling. LearnHub is the project thread for all 100 lessons. App Router uses the app/ directory for routes and layouts. Server Components run on the server by default in App Router.

Common questions