Sanity API Connection Refused Error on Vercel Deployment

I can see the issue right away! Your environment variables are all commented out with # symbols at the beginning of each line. In .env files, the # character denotes a comment, which means those lines are being ignored and your variables aren't actually being set.

Remove the # symbols from the beginning of each line in your .env.local file:

SANITY_PROJECT_ID=your_project_id
SANITY_DATASET=your_dataset_name
SANITY_API_TOKEN=your_sanity_api_token
SANITY_API_VERSION=2021-03-25

Also, make sure you replace the placeholder values (your_project_id, your_dataset_name, etc.) with your actual Sanity project credentials. You can find these in your Sanity project dashboard.

A couple of additional things to check:

1. Restart your development server after updating the .env.local file. Environment variables are only loaded when the server starts, so you need to stop and restart it for changes to take effect.

2. Vercel deployment: When deploying to Vercel, you need to add these environment variables in your Vercel project settings (Project Settings → Environment Variables), not just in your local .env.local file. The .env.local file only works for local development and typically isn't committed to your repository.

3. API version: Consider updating your SANITY_API_VERSION to a more recent date like 2024-01-01 or v2024-12-16 to get the latest API features and improvements.

The ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED error you're seeing is likely because your API route is trying to connect to Sanity but doesn't have the required credentials (since they were commented out), causing the connection to fail.