langchain-nextjs-template — Next.js Starter Template

SHA-256: bc6893fdb3b3391a5ae3840c28dfb2e2909dafbc451c211c823934a43760bc23

2026-09-30T08:02:32.892Z

# 🦜️🔗 LangChain + Next.js Starter Template

[![Open in GitHub Codespaces](https://github.com/codespaces/badge.svg)](https://codespaces.new/langchain-ai/langchain-nextjs-template)
[![Deploy with Vercel](https://vercel.com/button)](https://vercel.com/new/clone?repository-url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Flangchain-ai%2Flangchain-nextjs-template)

This template scaffolds a LangChain.js + Next.js starter app. It showcases how to use and combine LangChain modules for several
use cases. Specifically:

- [Simple chat](/app/api/chat/route.ts)
- [Returning structured output from an LLM call](/app/api/chat/structured_output/route.ts)
- [Answering complex, multi-step questions with agents](/app/api/chat/agents/route.ts)
- [Retrieval augmented generation (RAG) with a chain and a vector store](/app/api/chat/retrieval/route.ts)
- [Retrieval augmented generation (RAG) with an agent and a vector store](/app/api/chat/retrieval_agents/route.ts)

Most of them use Vercel's [AI SDK](https://github.com/vercel-labs/ai) to stream tokens to the client and display the incoming messages.

The agents use [LangGraph.js](https://langchain-ai.github.io/langgraphjs/), LangChain's framework for building agentic workflows. They use preconfigured helper functions to minimize boilerplate, but you can replace them with custom graphs as desired.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/e389e4e4-4fb9-4223-a4c2-dc002c8f20d3

It's free-tier friendly too! Check out the [bundle size stats below](#-bundle-size).

You can check out a hosted version of this repo here: https://langchain-nextjs-template.vercel.app/

## 🚀 Getting Started

First, clone this repo and download it locally.

Next, you'll need to set up environment variables in your repo's `.env.local` file. Copy the `.env.example` file to `.env.local`.
To start with the basic examples, you'll just need to add your OpenAI API key.

Because this app is made to run in serverless Edge functions, make sure you've set the `LANGCHAIN_CALLBACKS_BACKGROUND` environment variable to `false` to ensure tracing finishes if you are using [LangSmith tracing](https://docs.smith.langchain.com/).

Next, install the required packages using your preferred package manager (e.g. `yarn`).

Now you're ready to run the development server:

```bash
yarn dev
```

Open [http://localhost:3000](http://localhost:3000) with your browser to see the result! Ask the bot something and you'll see a streamed response:

![A streaming conversation between the user and the AI](/public/images/chat-conversation.png)

You can start editing the page by modifying `app/page.tsx`. The page auto-updates as you edit the file.

Backend logic lives in `app/api/chat/route.ts`. From here, you can change the prompt and model, or add other modules and logic.

## 🧱 Structured Output

The second example shows how to have a model return output according to a specific schema using OpenAI Functions.
Click the `Structured Output` link in the navbar to try it out:

![A streaming conversation between the user and an AI agent](/public/images/structured-output-conversation.png)

The chain in this example uses a [popular library called Zod](https://zod.dev) to construct a schema, then formats it in the way OpenAI expects.
It then passes that schema as a function into OpenAI and passes a `function_call` parameter to force OpenAI to return arguments in the specified format.

For more details, [check out this documentation page](https://js.langchain.com/docs/how_to/structured_output).

## 🦜 Agents

To try out the agent example, set `TAVILY_API_KEY` in `.env.local` for web search.
Get an API key from [Tavily](https://tavily.com/); the AI SDK agent example uses the same key.
The calculator accepts two numbers and an arithmetic operation rather than evaluating arbitrary expressions.

You can then click the `Agent` example and try asking it more complex questions:

![A streaming conversation between the user and an AI agent](/public/images/agent-conversation.png)

This example uses a [prebuilt LangGraph agent](https://langchain-ai.github.io/langgraphjs/tutorials/quickstart/), but you can customize your own as well.

## 🐶 Retrieval

The retrieval examples both use Supabase as a vector store through a small [local adapter](/utils/supabase-vector-store.ts) built on `@supabase/supabase-js` and `@langchain/core`. It uses the existing `documents` table and `match_documents` function; no database migration is needed.
You can swap in
[another supported vector store](https://js.langchain.com/docs/integrations/vectorstores) if preferred by changing
the code under `app/api/retrieval/ingest/route.ts`, `app/api/chat/retrieval/route.ts`, and `app/api/chat/retrieval_agents/route.ts`.

For Supabase, follow [these instructions](https://js.langchain.com/docs/integrations/vectorstores/supabase) to set up your
database, then get your database URL and private key and paste them into `.env.local`.

You can then switch to the `Retrieval` and `Retrieval Agent` examples. The default document text is pulled from the LangChain.js retrieval
use case docs, but you can change them to whatever text you'd like.

For a given text, you'll only need to press `Upload` once. Pressing it again will re-ingest the docs, resulting in duplicates.
You can clear your Supabase vector store by navigating to the console and running `DELETE FROM documents;`.

After splitting, embedding, and uploading some text, you're ready to ask questions!

For more info on retrieval chains, [see this page](https://js.langchain.com/docs/tutorials/rag).
The specific variant of the conversational retrieval chain used here is composed using LangChain Expression Language, which you can
[read more about here](https://js.langchain.com/docs/how_to/qa_sources/). This chain example will also return cited sources
via header in addition to the streaming response.

For more info on retrieval agents, [see this page](https://langchain-ai.github.io/langgraphjs/tutorials/rag/langgraph_agentic_rag/).

## Integration tests

Run the calculator and mock-backed Supabase regression tests with Node.js 22.6+:

```bash
node --experimental-strip-types --test utils/integrations.test.mjs
```

These tests do not require API keys or a live database.

## 📦 Bundle size

The bundle size for LangChain itself is quite small. After compression and chunk splitting, for the RAG use case LangChain uses 37.32 KB of code space (as of [@langchain/core 0.1.15](https://npmjs.com/package/@langchain/core)), which is less than 4% of the total Vercel free tier edge function alottment of 1 MB:

![](/public/images/bundle-size.png)

This package has [@next/bundle-analyzer](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@next/bundle-analyzer) set up by default - you can explore the bundle size interactively by running:

```bash
$ ANALYZE=true yarn build
```

## 📚 Learn More

The example chains in the `app/api/chat/route.ts` and `app/api/chat/retrieval/route.ts` files use
[LangChain Expression Language](https://js.langchain.com/docs/concepts#langchain-expression-language) to
compose different LangChain.js modules together. You can integrate other retrievers, agents, preconfigured chains, and more too, though keep in mind
`HttpResponseOutputParser` is meant to be used directly with model output.

To learn more about what you can do with LangChain.js, check out the docs here:

- https://js.langchain.com/docs/

## ▲ Deploy on Vercel

When ready, you can deploy your app on the [Vercel Platform](https://vercel.com/new?utm_medium=default-template&filter=next.js&utm_source=create-next-app&utm_campaign=create-next-app-readme).

Check out the [Next.js deployment documentation](https://nextjs.org/docs/deployment) for more details.

## Thank You!

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or comments, reach out to us on Twitter
[@LangChainAI](https://twitter.com/langchainai), or [click here to join our Discord server](https://discord.gg/langchain).