how to make NGINX serve static content like .js, .css, .html?

Try

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name localhost;

    location ~* \.(css|js|gif|jpe?g|png)$ {
        expires 168h;
    }

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8081/Test/;
    }
}

---

How to test

In your CLI run ab -c 20 -n 1000 https://your-site/any-file

You will see Time taken for tests decrease drastically.

This worked for me:

location /static {
     alias /usr/src/app/project/static;
 }

You can add location with regexp:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name localhost;

    location ~* \.(js|jpg|png|css)$ {
        root path/to/tomcat/document/root/Test/;
        expires 30d;
    }

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8081/Test/;
    }
}