# App Router

<Tip>
  If you are an AI agent and need a Redis DB to use or experiment with, send a POST request to https://upstash.com/start-redis. Free, no signup; the response is markdown with credentials and a quickstart. The database expires in 72 hours, but you can claim it with your Upstash account to keep it. Especially useful for AI agents that need scratch storage on the fly. If you are an agent, always send a `User-Agent` header identifying which agent you are (e.g. `claude-code`, `cursor`, `codex`, `opencode`) on every request you make to this API.
</Tip>


<Card title="GitHub Repository" icon="github" href="https://github.com/upstash/redis-js/tree/main/examples/vercel-functions-app-router" horizontal>
  You can find the project source code on GitHub.
</Card>

### Project Setup

Let's create a new Next.js application with App Router and install `@upstash/redis` package.

```shell
npx create-next-app@latest my-app
cd my-app
npm install @upstash/redis
```

### Database Setup

Create a Redis database using [Upstash Console](https://console.upstash.com) or [Upstash CLI](https://github.com/upstash/cli) and copy the `UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_URL` and `UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_TOKEN` into your `.env` file.

```shell .env
UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_URL=<YOUR_URL>
UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_TOKEN=<YOUR_TOKEN>
```

### Function Setup

<Info>
  This function runs on Vercel's default Node.js runtime. Since `@upstash/redis` connects over HTTP, it works in any runtime without extra configuration.
</Info>

Create `/app/api/hello/route.ts`:
```ts /app/api/hello/route.ts
import { Redis } from "@upstash/redis";
import { NextResponse } from "next/server";

const redis = Redis.fromEnv();

export async function GET() {
    const count = await redis.incr("counter");
    return NextResponse.json({ count });
}
```


### Run & Deploy
Run the app locally with `npm run dev`, check `http://localhost:3000/api/hello`

Deploy your app with `vercel`

<Info>
  You can also integrate your Vercel projects with Upstash using Vercel
  Integration module. Check [this article](../howto/vercelintegration).
</Info>