Node Creation

The createNode API, one of the Gatsby Node APIs, is responsible for creating nodes, which can take the form of any object. Within Redux, which Gatsby leverages to manage state, nodes are stored under the nodes namespace. The nodes namespace carries state in the form of a map of Node identifiers to Node objects.

Node creation happens first and foremost in the sourceNodes bootstrap stage, and all nodes created during sourceNodes execution are top-level nodes that lack a parent. To indicate this, source plugins set each node’s parent field to null.

NOTE

For more information about node tracking, which Gatsby uses to track relationships between a node’s object values (i.e., not children) and its identifier, consult the documentation.