contentful.js

JavaScript SDK for Contentful's Content Delivery API.

npm Build Status codecov Dependency Status devDependency Status

semantic-release js-standard-style npm downloads gzip bundle size

Contentful provides a content infrastructure for digital teams to power content in websites, apps, and devices. Unlike a CMS, Contentful was built to integrate with the modern software stack. It offers a central hub for structured content, powerful management and delivery APIs, and a customizable web app that enable developers and content creators to ship digital products faster.

Features

Browsers and Node.js:

  • Chrome
  • Firefox
  • Edge
  • IE11 (with legacy version of the library)
  • Safari
  • node.js (6.x, 8.x)

Other browsers should also work, but at the moment we're only running automated tests on the browsers and Node.js versions specified above.

Getting started

In order to get started with the Contentful JS SDK you'll need not only to install it, but also to get credentials which will allow you to have access to your content in Contentful.

Node:

Using npm:

npm install contentful

Using yarn:

yarn add contentful

Browser:

For browsers, we recommend to download the SDK via npm or yarn to ensure 100% availability.

If you'd like to use a standalone built file you can use the following script tag or download it from jsDelivr, under the dist directory:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/contentful@latest/dist/contentful.browser.min.js"></script>

Using contentful@latest will always get you the latest version, but you can also specify a specific version number:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/contentful@5.0.1/dist/contentful.browser.min.js"></script>

The Contentful Delivery SDK will be accessible via the contentful global variable.

Check the releases page to know which versions are available.

Angular 6:

Currently Angular 6 fail to compile with the SDK because it tries to pick the node disribution instead of the browser one, to fix that Make sure to add the following in your tsconfig.json file

"paths":{
      "contentful": ["./node_modules/contentful/dist/contentful.browser.js"]
    }

your tsconfig.json should look like this

{
  "compileOnSave": false,
  "compilerOptions": {
    "baseUrl": "./",
    "outDir": "./dist/out-tsc",
    "sourceMap": true,
    "declaration": false,
    "moduleResolution": "node",
    "emitDecoratorMetadata": true,
    "experimentalDecorators": true,
    "target": "es5",
    "paths":{
      "contentful": ["./node_modules/contentful/dist/contentful.browser.js"] // add this
    },
    "typeRoots": [
      "node_modules/@types"
    ],
    "lib": [
      "es2017",
      "dom"
    ]
  }
}

Legacy browsers:

This library also comes with a legacy version to support Internet Explorer 11 and other older browsers. It already contains a polyfill for Promises.

To support legacy browsers in your application, use contentful.legacy.min.js instead of contentful.browser.min.js

Authentication

To get content from Contentful, an app should authenticate with an OAuth bearer token.

You can create API keys using Contentful's web interface. Go to the app, open the space that you want to access (top left corner lists all the spaces), and navigate to the APIs area. Open the API Keys section and create your first token. Done.

Don't forget to also get your Space ID.

For more information, check the Contentful's REST API reference on Authentication.

Using ES6 import

You can use the es6 import with the SDK as follow

// import createClient directly
import {createClient} from 'contentful'
const client = createClient({
  // This is the space ID. A space is like a project folder in Contentful terms
  space: 'developer_bookshelf',
  // This is the access token for this space. Normally you get both ID and the token in the Contentful web app
  accessToken: '0b7f6x59a0'
})
//....

OR

// import everything from contentful
import * as contentful from 'contentful'
const client = contentful.createClient({
  // This is the space ID. A space is like a project folder in Contentful terms
  space: 'developer_bookshelf',
  // This is the access token for this space. Normally you get both ID and the token in the Contentful web app
  accessToken: '0b7f6x59a0'
})
// ....

Your first request

The following code snippet is the most basic one you can use to get some content from Contentful with this SDK:

const contentful = require('contentful')
const client = contentful.createClient({
  // This is the space ID. A space is like a project folder in Contentful terms
  space: 'developer_bookshelf',
  // This is the access token for this space. Normally you get both ID and the token in the Contentful web app
  accessToken: '0b7f6x59a0'
})
// This API call will request an entry with the specified ID from the space defined at the top, using a space-specific access token.
client.getEntry('5PeGS2SoZGSa4GuiQsigQu')
.then((entry) => console.log(entry)).catch((err) => console.log(err))

You can try and change the above example at Tonic, or if you'd prefer a more Browser oriented example, check out this JSFiddle version of our Product Catalogue demo app.

Using this SDK with the Preview API

This SDK can also be used with the Preview API. In order to do so, you need to use the Preview API Access token, available on the same page where you get the Delivery API token, and specify the host of the preview API, such as:

const contentful = require('contentful')
const client = contentful.createClient({
  space: 'developer_bookshelf',
  accessToken: 'preview_0b7f6x59a0',
  host: 'preview.contentful.com'
})

You can check other options for the client on our reference documentation

Advanced features

Link resolution

contentful.js does resolve links by default unless specified otherwise. To disable it just set resolveLinks to false when creating the Contentful client. Like so

const contentful = require('contentful')
const client = contentful.createClient({
  accessToken:'<you-access-token>',
  space: '<your-space-id>',
  resolveLinks: false
})

Please note that the link resolution is only possible when requesting records from the collection endpoint using client.getEntries() or by performing an initial sync client.sync({initial: true}). In case you want to request one entry and benefit from the link resolution you can use the collection end point with the following query parameter 'sys.id': '<your-entry-id>'.

e.g. assuming that you have a Content Type post that has a reference field author

const contentful = require('contentful')
const client = contentful.createClient({
  accessToken:'<you-access-token>',
  space: '<your-space-id>',
})
// getting a specific Post
client.getEntries({'sys.id': '<entry-id>'}).then((response) => {
  // output the author name
  console.log(response.items[0].fields.author.fields.name)
}).catch((err) => console.log(err))

The link resolution is applied to one level deep by default. If you need it to be applied deeper, you may specify the include parameter when fetching your entries as follows client.getEntries({include: <value>}). The include parameter can be set to a number up to 10..

By default, the SDK will keep links, which could not get resolved, in your response. If you want to completely remove fields which could not be resolved, set removeUnresolved: true in the configuration options.

Sync

The Sync API allows you to keep a local copy of all content in a space up-to-date via delta updates, meaning only changes that occurred since last sync call. Whenever you perform a sync operation the endpoint will send back a syncToken which you can use in a subsequent sync to only retrieve data which changed since the last call. e.g.

const contentful = require('contentful')
const client = contentful.createClient({
  accessToken:'<you-access-token>',
  space: '<your-space-id>',
})
// first time you are syncing make sure to specify `initial: true`
client.sync({initial: true}).then((response) => {
  // You should save the `nextSyncToken` to use in the following sync
  console.log(response.nextSyncToken)
}).catch((err) => console.log(err))

The SDK will go through all the pages for you and gives you back a response object with the full data so you don't need to handle pagination.

Sync without pagination

You may use syncing without pagination if you want to handle it on your own. To do this, you have to pass paginate: false as option when calling sync. You manually have to take care to pass nextPageToken or nextSyncToken to your subsequent calls. The logic follows our sync API docs while you pass tokens instead of full urls.

const contentful = require('contentful')
const client = contentful.createClient({
  accessToken:'<you-access-token>',
  space: '<your-space-id>',
})

function customPaginatedSync (query) {
  // Call sync, make sure you set paginate to false for every call
  return client.sync(query, {paginate: false}).then((response) => {
    // Do something with the respond. For example save result to disk.
    console.log('Result of current sync page:', response.items)

    // Sync finished when `nextSyncToken` is available
    if (response.nextSyncToken) {
      console.log('Syncing done. Start a new sync via ' + response.nextSyncToken)
      return
    }

    // Otherwise, just continue to next page of the current sync run
    return customPaginatedSync({nextPageToken: response.nextPageToken})
  })
}

customPaginatedSync({initial: true})
  .then(() => console.log('Sync done'))

Querying & Search parameters

You can pass your query parameters as key: value pairs in the query object whenever request a resource. e.g.

const contentful = require('contentful')
const client = contentful.createClient({
  accessToken:'<you-access-token>',
  space: '<your-space-id>',
})

// getting a specific Post
client.getEntries({'sys.id': '<entry-id>'}).then((response) => {
  // output the author name
  console.log(response.items[0].fields.author.fields.name)
}).catch((err) => console.log(err))

// You can pass a query when requesting a single entity
client.getEntry('<entry-id>', {key: value})

for more information about the search parameters check the documentation

Troubleshooting

  • Can I use the SDK in react native projects
    • Yes it is possible
  • I get the error: Unable to resolve module http

    • Our SDK is supplied as node and browser version. Most non-node environments, like React Native, act like a browser. To force using of the browser version, you can require it via: const { createClient } = require('contentful/dist/contentful.browser.min.js')
  • Link resolution does not work when using client.getEntry('<entry-id>')

    • Link resolution does not work with the single entity endpoint, you can use client.getEntries({'sys.id': '<entry-id>'}) to link an entry with resolved links
  • Can I use it with typescript?
    • Yes, there is also a type definition file
  • Is the SDK doing any caching?
    • No, check this issue for more infos
  • 😱 Something is wrong what should I do?
    • If it is a bug related to the code create a Github issue and make sure to remove any credential for your code before sharing it.
    • If you need to share your credentials, for example you have an issue with your space, please create a support ticket in the support page.

Documentation/References

To help you get the most out of this SDK, we've prepared reference documentation, tutorials and other examples that will help you learn and understand how to use this library.

Configuration

The createClient method supports several options you may set to achieve the expected behavior:

contentful.createClient({
  ... your config here ...
})

accessToken (required)

Your CDA access token.

space (required)

Your Space ID.

host (default: 'cdn.contentful.com')

Set the host used to build the request URI's.

basePath (default: )

This path gets appended to the host to allow request urls like https://gateway.example.com/contentful/ for custom gateways/proxies.

httpAgent (default: undefined)

Custom agent to perform HTTP requests. Find further information in the axios request config documentation.

httpsAgent (default: undefined)

Custom agent to perform HTTPS requests. Find further information in the axios request config documentation.

headers (default: {})

Additional headers to attach to the requests. We add/overwrite the following headers:

  • Content-Type: application/vnd.contentful.management.v1+json
  • X-Contentful-User-Agent: sdk contentful.js/1.2.3; platform node.js/1.2.3; os macOS/1.2.3 (Automatically generated)

    proxy (default: undefined)

    Axios proxy configuration. See the axios request config documentation for further information about the supported values.

resolveLinks (default: true)

Turn off to disable link resolving.

removeUnresolved (default: false)

Remove fields from response for unresolved links.

retryOnError (default: true)

By default, this SDK is retrying requests which resulted in a 500 server error and 429 rate limit response. Set this to false to disable this behavior.

logHandler (default: function (level, data) {})

Errors and warnings will be logged by default to the node or browser console. Pass your own log handler to intercept here and handle errors, warnings and info on your own.

Reference documentation

The Contentful's JS SDK reference documents what objects and methods are exposed by this library, what arguments they expect and what kind of data is returned.

Most methods also have examples which show you how to use them.

You can start by looking at the top level contentful namespace.

From version 3.0.0 onwards, you can access documentation for a specific version by visiting `https://contentful.github.io/contentful.js/contentful/<VERSION>`

Contentful JavaScript resources

Check the Contentful for JavaScript page for Tutorials, Demo Apps, and more information on other ways of using JavaScript with Contentful

REST API reference

This library is a wrapper around our Contentful Delivery REST API. Some more specific details such as search parameters and pagination are better explained on the REST API reference, and you can also get a better understanding of how the requests look under the hood.

Legacy contentful.js

For versions prior to 3.0.0, you can access documentation at https://github.com/contentful/contentful.js/tree/legacy

Versioning

This project strictly follows Semantic Versioning by use of semantic-release.

This means that new versions are released automatically as fixes, features or breaking changes are released.

You can check the changelog on the releases page.

Migration from contentful.js 4.x

The bundle for browsers is now called contentful.browser.min.js to mark it clearly as browser only bundle. If you need to support IE 11 or other old browsers, you may use the contentful.legacy.min.js. Node will automatically use the contentful.node.min.js while bundlers like Webpack will resolve to the new ES-modules version of the library.

No changes to the API of the library were made.

Migration from contentful.js 3.x

From version 4.0.0 and up contentful.js is exported as a single umd bundle the cdn distribution has changed, there is no more browser-dist. the new link format is https://unpkg.com/contentful@version/dist/contentful.min.js instead of https://unpkg.com/contentful@version/browser-dist/contentful.min.js. to access version 3 you can still use https:\/\/unpkg.com/contentful@3.0.0/browser-dist/contentful.min.js

Migration from contentful.js 2.x and older

contentful.js 3.x was a major rewrite, with some API changes. While the base functionality remains the same, some method names have changed, as well as some internal behaviors.

See the migration guide for more information.

Support

If you have a problem with this library, please file an issue here on GitHub.

If you have other problems with Contentful not related to this library, you can contact Customer Support.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md

License

MIT