Verification: the curl test every recipe must pass

Every framework recipe is only "done" when a plain curl against a Studio route returns composition body content, a Studio-emitted style tag, and populated metadata. These are the exact assertions the SDK's example apps run on every continuous integration (CI) pass.

Runnable reference: examples/node-ssr/baseline-check.ts in the SDK repo.

Given a known-good composition URL (/blog/some-slug, /product/some-sku: pick one you know has an entry authored), verify:

URL=http://localhost:3000/blog/some-slug
curl -s "$URL" > /tmp/ssr-check.html

# Search for a known text string from the composition — heading, paragraph, CTA label.
grep -F "Some Known Heading From The Entry" /tmp/ssr-check.html

A match means server-side rendering (SSR) is working: the composition rendered server-side. An empty match means the body didn't SSR. Check Troubleshooting, Empty <main> under raw Node and Section Attempted to call X() from the server.

Alternative: look for the composition's structural markers rather than content strings.

grep -oE '<main[^>]*>' /tmp/ssr-check.html
grep -c '<section' /tmp/ssr-check.html   # 1+ if the composition has sections

grep -o 'data-studio-ssr' /tmp/ssr-check.html         # → data-studio-ssr
grep -oE '\-\-token-[a-z-]+:' /tmp/ssr-check.html | head -5

• If data-studio-ssr is present, the SDK emitted the <style> block.
• If --token-<name>: custom properties are present, the composition's design-panel tokens are in the response.

Both are required for FOUC-free first paint. If either is missing, see Section Unstyled first paint.

grep -oE '<title>[^<]+</title>' /tmp/ssr-check.html
grep -oE '<meta name="description" content="[^"]+"' /tmp/ssr-check.html
grep -oE '<meta property="og:image" content="[^"]+"' /tmp/ssr-check.html
grep -oE '<link rel="canonical" href="[^"]+"' /tmp/ssr-check.html

All four required for full SEO coverage. If any are empty:

• An empty <title> means the metadata call is missing from the recipe wiring.
• Empty OG or canonical tags mean the entry's SEO fields are not authored. See Section Metadata gaps.

• Next.js Pages Router: run next build && next start, not next dev. Dev mode's per-request recompile is racy for module init order. Prod is deterministic.
• Next.js App Router (RSC): the initial response is a mix of streamed HTML + RSC flight payload (self.__next_f). The composition HTML must be in the plain HTML section, not just the flight payload. curl -s | grep -v '__next_f' isolates it.
• Astro: verify in astro dev mode is fine. The SSR path is identical to astro build.
• Gatsby DSG: first request generates the deferred page (slower). Subsequent requests are fast. Warm the URL with one curl before running assertions.
• Remix: remix dev runs the real SSR pipeline. No build step needed for verification.

Save this as verify-ssr.sh in your project root, run before every deploy or as part of CI:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

URL="${1:-http://localhost:3000/blog/some-known-slug}"
HTML=$(mktemp)
trap "rm -f $HTML" EXIT

curl -sSf "$URL" > "$HTML"

pass=true
check() {
  local label="$1" pattern="$2"
  if grep -q "$pattern" "$HTML"; then
    echo "✓ $label"
  else
    echo "✗ $label — pattern not found: $pattern"
    pass=false
  fi
}

check "body has <main>" '<main'
check "styles emitted"  'data-studio-ssr'
check "tokens present"  '\-\-token-'
check "title populated" '<title>[^<]\{3,\}'
check "og:image"        'og:image'

$pass || { echo "SSR verification failed at $URL"; exit 1; }
echo "SSR verification passed at $URL"

Wire it into your deploy pipeline so nothing ships until SSR responds at a known URL.

Both CI-tested example apps run this same three-assertion contract:

• examples/node-ssr/baseline-check.ts in the SDK repo: the Node-side reference.
• examples/nextjs-rsc/tests/baseline-check.ts in the SDK repo: the RSC reference, also verified on Next 14 and Next 16.

If a customer recipe passes the contract, it's SSR-shipping-ready. If it doesn't, the specific assertion that failed maps directly to a troubleshooting section.

• Framework recipes: index.
• Troubleshooting: every failure mode indexed by symptom.