Hi Next.js team! 👋

I'm building a production application using the Next.js App Router and noticed that every page includes multiple scripts like:

<script>(self.next_f = self.next_f || []).push(...)</script>

When I inspect the page source, I can see that the next_f payload contains a significant amount of serialized data, including page content, metadata, and other information.

I have a few questions:

Is the next_f payload always required when using the App Router?
Is there any supported way to remove it entirely, or is it a fundamental part of the React Server Components architecture?
If it cannot be removed, what are the recommended best practices for minimizing its size?
Does a large next_f payload have any impact on SEO, crawling, or performance beyond increasing the HTML response size?
Are there common patterns that unintentionally make the payload much larger (for example, passing large objects to Client Components or serializing large HTML strings)?

My goal isn't to bypass the framework. I just want to understand the recommended approach for keeping the RSC payload as small as possible while continuing to use the App Router and following Next.js best practices.

If there are any official resources or documentation that explain how the next_f payload is generated and how developers should optimize it, I'd really appreciate a pointer.

Thanks for your time and for all the work on Next.js!