Sanity Studio 404 error on /desk route when hosting on Netlify

This is a common issue when deploying Sanity Studio to Netlify! The problem is that Sanity Studio is a single-page application (SPA), and when you navigate to routes like /desk, Netlify tries to find an actual file at that path instead of serving your index.html file.

The solution is to add a _redirects file to tell Netlify to serve your index.html for all routes. Here's how to fix it:

The Solution

Create a file called _redirects (no file extension) in your Studio's public folder with this content:

/*    /index.html   200

This tells Netlify to serve your index.html file for all routes (the /* wildcard) with a 200 status code, which allows the Studio's client-side routing to handle the navigation properly.

Where to Place the File

The location depends on your setup:

• Standard Studio setup: Create public/_redirects in your Studio directory
• Monorepo setup: Create it in studio/public/_redirects (or wherever your Studio lives)

The public folder's contents get copied to the build output when you run sanity build, so the _redirects file will end up in your dist folder where Netlify can read it.

Netlify Build Settings

Make sure your Netlify configuration is correct:

• Build command: sanity build (or npm run build if you've set up a build script)
• Publish directory: dist (or studio/dist for monorepos)

Why This Happens

Single-page applications like Sanity Studio use client-side routing, meaning routes like /desk don't correspond to actual files on the server. Without the redirect rule, Netlify looks for a file called desk and returns a 404 when it doesn't find one. The _redirects file tells Netlify to always serve the index.html, which then loads the Studio JavaScript that handles the routing.

After deploying with this change, navigating directly to /desk or any other Studio route should work correctly in all browsers!