Sanity Best Practices

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Sanity development best practices for schema design, GROQ queries, TypeGen, Visual Editing, images, Portable Text, Studio structure, localization, migrations, Sanity Functions, webhooks, Blueprints, and framework integrations such as Next.js, Nuxt, Astro, Remix, SvelteKit, Angular, Hydrogen, and the App SDK. Use this skill whenever working with Sanity schemas, defineType or defineField, GROQ or defineQuery, content modeling, Presentation or preview setups, Sanity-powered frontend integrations, event-driven content automation, documentEventHandler, defineDocumentFunction, defineMediaLibraryAssetFunction, @sanity/functions, @sanity/blueprints, sanity.blueprint.ts, event-driven content automation, or when reviewing and fixing a Sanity codebase.

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SKILL.md

sanity-best-practices

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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

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

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