Challenge 1: The SPA Location Block — Solution Walkthrough

The configuration:

  location / {
      try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
  }

Why this works:

A single location / {} block matching every request is enough here —
try_files itself does the actual candidate-checking work described in
this chapter. For any incoming request, Nginx first checks whether
$uri (the exact requested path) exists as a real file; if not, whether
$uri/ exists as a directory; and if neither exists, it falls back to
serving /index.html instead of returning a 404. Once index.html loads,
the single-page application's own client-side router takes over and
displays the right view based on the URL, even though no real file
matched that URL on the server.

WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER
------------------------------
This exercise is a direct, hands-on application of this chapter's own
try_files example to the exact SPA scenario it was introduced to
solve, confirming the $uri / $uri/ / /index.html candidate order as
the actual mechanism rather than a fixed example tied to one specific
app.