Next.js Cookie Consent: The Complete Guide

## The Day We Almost Missed a Launch We were shipping a client's Next.js app. Three days from launch. "Hey, we need GDPR compliance for EU users." We'd done this before. Or so we thought. We spent the next two days: - Reading Google Consent Mode v2 documentation - Configuring 23 GTM triggers - Debugging why consent defaults weren't firing before gtag - Watching my Lighthouse score drop from 98 to 74 - Still not being sure if it actually worked We delayed the launch. There's a better way. We wish we'd known it then. ## The 2-Minute Setup ### App Router (Next.js 13+) ```tsx // app/layout.tsx import Script from 'next/script' export default function RootLayout({ children, }: { children: React.ReactNode }) { return (