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- Astro Weekly #65
Astro Weekly #65
New experimental features in first minor release of the Astro 5 era! Plus, tips on upgrading your code snippets and integrating Word docs into your collections
Nathan Lawson
January 12, 2025
In partnership with
Greetings, Astronauts.
After a brief holiday hiatus, we're back with regular weekly content to keep you up to date with all things Astro. To kick off the new year, we're doing a quick recap of some key updates and announcements you might have missed over the Christmas break.
Let’s dive in! 🚀
What’s new with Astro 🗞️
Astro 5.1 is now in session
Astro 5.1 released ⚡️
Just when you thought the year was done and dusted—and Astro Weekly wrapped up—Astro pulled a classic “one more thing” move.
In the final days of 2024, the Astro team squeezed in Astro 5.1. Here’s what’s new:
Experimental Sessions: Manage per-user data like login status or shopping carts with server-side sessions. By storing data on the server and using a session ID cookie on the client, this feature simplifies state management and boosts security.
Remote Image Caching: The <Image /> component now caches remote images more effectively, delivering faster load times and performance for sites using external image sources.
getActionPath Helper: A handy new utility to streamline defining and managing server-side functionality within Astro projects.
For detailed information on these features and guidance on implementing them, refer to the official release blog post.
Astro Boosters 🚀
Writer RAG tool: build production-ready RAG apps in minutes
Writer RAG Tool: build production-ready RAG apps in minutes with simple API calls.
Knowledge Graph integration for intelligent data retrieval and AI-powered interactions.
Streamlined full-stack platform eliminates complex setups for scalable, accurate AI workflows.
Astro Community 🧑🚀
Stylish code snippets with MDX
Upgrading Astro code snippets 🧑💻
Namchee explores upgrading Astro’s default code snippets to improve both readability and usability for developers and readers alike.
By using MDX, they add features like captions, line numbers, syntax highlighting, and a copy-to-clipboard button, ensuring your snippets are as stylish and functional as your code (hopefully).
Making your Word docs feel right at home
Load Word docs into an Astro content collection 📄
astro-word-loader is a useful Astro package that lets you easily import .docx and .doc files into Astro Content Collections.
Using Mammoth for custom styling, it makes integrating Word documents into your projects as easy as copying and pasting.
What else I’ve been reading this week 🤓
Check out these great posts from the Astro Community ↓
If you have something awesome you’d like to share with the Astro community, you can reach me at [email protected] or via DM on X
Astro Boosters 🚀
Learn AI in 5 minutes a day
What’s the secret to staying ahead of the curve in the world of AI? Information. Luckily, you can join 1,000,000+ early adopters reading The Rundown AI — the free newsletter that makes you smarter on AI with just a 5-minute read per day.
Astro on X 💫
What’s happening on Twitter X this week…
Is there a nicer dev experience than installing and building with Astro? So friendly, so clean. Just a joy to work with.
Keep up the good work @astrodotbuild!
— Steven Wanderski (@stevenwanderski)
8:03 PM • Jan 7, 2025
Direct link for web version:
https://x.com/stevenwanderski/status/1876721266494701613
Astro Showcase 🤩
Check out these impressive projects built with Astro!
Would you like your work to be featured in our Astro Showcase? Get in touch at [email protected] or DM me on X
That’s all for this week in the Astroverse!
Have you been working on something interesting with Astro over the holidays that you’d like to share? Let me know me at [email protected] or via DM on X.
Until next week, may your code compile at the first attempt!
– Nathan 👨🚀