Static pages that refresh themselves
Incremental static regeneration keeps the speed of static files while letting them update without a full rebuild. Each page is generated and cached, then rebuilt in the background after a chosen time window or trigger.
- A page is served instantly from cache, like static generation.
- After a revalidation interval the next request triggers a background rebuild.
- The stale page is shown until the fresh one is ready, then it swaps in.
Stale while revalidate behavior
This is a stale while revalidate strategy. Users never wait for a rebuild because they always get the cached copy first.
- You pick a revalidate time, for example sixty seconds.
- New pages can also be generated on demand the first time they are requested.
- Freshness lags by at most one revalidation cycle plus rebuild time.
It fits large catalogs and news style content where you want static speed but cannot rebuild the whole site for every change. The tradeoff is that a user may briefly see slightly stale data while the background rebuild runs.
Key idea
Incremental static regeneration serves cached static pages instantly and rebuilds them in the background on a revalidation interval, blending static speed with bounded freshness so you avoid full rebuilds.