Sanity Best Practices

Comprehensive best practices and integration guides for Sanity development, maintained by Sanity. Use the quick reference below to load only the one or two topic files that match the task.

When to Apply

Reference these guidelines when:

• Setting up a new Sanity project or onboarding
• Integrating Sanity with a frontend framework (Next.js, Nuxt, Astro, Remix, SvelteKit, Hydrogen)
• Writing GROQ queries or optimizing performance
• Designing content schemas
• Implementing Visual Editing and live preview
• Working with images, Portable Text, or page builders
• Configuring Sanity Studio structure
• Setting up TypeGen for type safety
• Implementing localization
• Migrating content from other systems
• Building custom apps with the Sanity App SDK
• Developing or deploying a Studio or app in the Sanity Dashboard
• Managing infrastructure with Blueprints
• Automating content workflows with Sanity Functions or webhooks

Global Rules

• Let Sanity generate _id values for ordinary documents. Do not create deterministic UUIDs, slug-derived IDs, or legacy-system IDs when creating documents.
• Model relationships with reference fields, then resolve related documents with GROQ lookups, source-key fields, or returned _id values from created documents.
• Use explicit document IDs mainly for singleton documents controlled by Studio Structure, including localized singletons such as homePage-en.

Video

• Do not store or serve video from Sanity file assets for production playback. File assets are delivered as raw downloads with no transcoding or adaptive streaming, and video traffic drives very high bandwidth usage and unexpectedly large bills.
• On Enterprise plans with the video add-on, use Sanity Media Library for video: uploads are transcoded and streamed adaptively via Mux. Model video fields with defineVideoField() from sanity/media-library and play them with @mux/mux-player-react using the asset's playback ID.
• On other plans, use a dedicated video service: install sanity-plugin-mux-input to upload and manage videos in your Mux account from the Studio, or host video on a platform such as YouTube or Vimeo and store only the embed URL in Sanity.
• Small clips and short previews in a file field are acceptable, but any user-facing video at scale must go through Media Library or a streaming service.

Quick Reference

Integration Guides

• get-started - Interactive onboarding for new Sanity projects
• nextjs - Next.js App Router, Live Content API, standalone Studio
• nuxt - Nuxt integration with @nuxtjs/sanity
• angular - Angular integration with @sanity/client, signals, resource API
• astro - Astro integration with @sanity/astro
• remix - React Router / Remix integration
• svelte - SvelteKit integration with @sanity/svelte-loader
• hydrogen - Shopify Hydrogen with Sanity
• project-structure - Standalone Studio and monorepo patterns
• app-sdk - Custom applications with Sanity App SDK
• dashboard - Studios and apps in the Sanity Dashboard: defineApplication, local dev, deploys, Dashboard hooks
• blueprints - Infrastructure as Code: blueprint files, stacks, plan/deploy workflow, error recovery, CI deploys
• functions - Automating content workflows with Sanity Functions and webhooks

Topic Guides

• groq - GROQ query patterns, type safety, performance optimization
• schema - Schema design, field definitions, validation, deprecation patterns
• visual-editing - Presentation Tool, Stega, overlays, live preview
• page-builder - Page Builder arrays, block components, live editing
• portable-text - Rich text rendering and custom components
• image - Image schema, URL builder, hotspots, LQIP, Next.js Image
• studio-structure - Desk structure, singletons, navigation
• typegen - TypeGen configuration, workflow, type utilities
• seo - Metadata, sitemaps, Open Graph, JSON-LD
• localization - i18n patterns, document vs field-level, locale management
• migration - Content import overview (see also migration-html-import)
• migration-html-import - HTML to Portable Text with @portabletext/block-tools

How to Use

Start with the single framework or topic guide that best matches the request, then read additional references only when the task crosses concerns. Use these reference files for detailed explanations and code examples:

references/groq.md
references/schema.md
references/nextjs.md

Each reference file contains:

• Comprehensive topic or integration coverage
• Incorrect and correct code examples
• Decision matrices and workflow guidance
• Framework-specific patterns where applicable