How to add third party scripts & inline scripts in your Nuxt.js app?

Problem statement

Let's say you have created a Nuxt app and one day your client or your boss asks you to add some snippet of code to every page of the site for analytics purposes. For example:

<!-- Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Analytics -->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA-111111111-1"></script>
<script>
  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
  function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
  gtag('js', new Date());

  gtag('config', 'UA-111111111-1');
</script>

Solution

Open your nuxt.config.js file and update the head section as follows:

  head: {
    __dangerouslyDisableSanitizers: ['script'],
    script: [
      {
        hid: 'gtm-script1',
        src: 'https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA-111111111-1',
        defer: true
      },
      {
        hid: 'gtm-script2',
        innerHTML: `
          window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
          function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
          gtag('js', new Date());

          gtag('config', 'UA-111111111-1');
        `,
        type: 'text/javascript',
        charset: 'utf-8'
      }
    ]
  },

As you can see the script array contains two objects. First one is to include the external script from googletagmanager.com. The second object shows how to include inline Javascript. For that to work however, you need to add the setting __dangerouslyDisableSanitizers: ['script'],. I am not sure if this is the best or even the recommended approach but it worked for me. If you happen to know a better alternative, I would definitely love to know. You can mention in the comments section below or tag me on twitter.

Thanks and happy coding :-)