Content Delivery API

Javascript

Readme · Migration · Advanced · TypeScript · Contributing

Introduction

JavaScript library for the Contentful Content Delivery API and Content Preview API. It helps you to easily access your content stored in Contentful with your JavaScript applications.

What is Contentful?

Contentful provides content infrastructure for digital teams to power 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 enables developers and content creators to ship their products faster.

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Core Features
  • Supported browsers and Node.js versions
• Getting started
  • Installation
    • Using in Legacy Environments Without ESM/Import Support
    • Using it directly in the browser
  • Your first request
  • Using this library with the Preview API
  • Authentication
• Documentation & References
  • Configuration
    • Request configuration options
    • Response configuration options
  • Client chain modifiers
    • Entries
      • Example
    • Assets
      • Example
    • Sync
      • Example
  • Reference documentation
  • Tutorials & other resources
  • Troubleshooting
  • TypeScript
  • Advanced concepts
  • Migration
• Reach out to us
  • You have questions about how to use this library?
  • You found a bug or want to propose a feature?
  • You need to share confidential information or have other questions?
• Get involved
• License
• Code of Conduct

Core Features

• Content retrieval through Content Delivery API and Content Preview API.
• Synchronization
• Localization support
• Link resolution
• Built in rate limiting with recovery procedures
• Supports Environments (since v6.0.0)

Supported browsers and Node.js versions

• Chrome
• Firefox
• Edge
• Safari
• node.js (LTS)
• React Native (Metro bundler)

> For the minimum supported browser versions, refer to the package.json of this library.

To ensure compatibility across various JavaScript environments, this library is built as an ECMAScript Module (ESM) by default, using the "type": "module" declaration in package.json.

We also offer a bundle for the legacy CommonJS (CJS) require syntax, allowing usage in environments that do not support ESM.

Additionally, there is a bundle available for direct usage within browsers.

For more details on the different variants of this library, see Installation.

Getting started

In order to get started with the Contentful JS library 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.

• Installation
• Your first request
• Using this library with the Preview API
• Authentication
• Documentation & References

Installation

npm install contentful

In a modern environment, you can import this library using:

import * as contentful from 'contentful'

Using in Legacy Environments Without ESM/Import Support

Typically, your system will default to our CommonJS export when you use the require syntax:

const contentful = require('contentful')

If this does not work, you can directly require the CJS-compatible code:

const contentful = require('contentful/dist/contentful.cjs')

Using it directly in the browser

For browsers, we recommend downloading the library 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:

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

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

Check the releases page to know which versions are available.

Your first request

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

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',
})
// 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))

Check out this JSFiddle version of our Product Catalogue demo app.

Using this library with the Preview API

This library 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:

import * as contentful from "contentful"
const client = contentful.createClient({
  space: 'developer_bookshelf',
  accessToken: 'preview_0b7f6x59a0',
  host: 'preview.contentful.com',
})

You can find all available methods of our client in our reference documentation.

Authentication

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

You can create API keys using the Contentful 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 REST API reference on Authentication.

Documentation & References

• Configuration
• Client chain modifiers
• Reference documentation
• Tutorials & other resources
• Troubleshooting
• TypeScript
• Advanced concepts
• Migration

To help you get the most out of this library, we've prepared all available client configuration options, a 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...
})

The configuration options belong to two categories: request config and response config.

Request configuration options

Name	Default	Description
accessToken		Required. Your CDA access token.
space		Required. Your Space ID.
environment	'master'	Set the environment that the API key has access to.
host	'cdn.contentful.com'	Set the host used to build the request URI's.
basePath	''	This path gets appended to the host to allow request urls like https://gateway.example.com/contentful/ for custom gateways/proxies.
httpAgent	undefined	Custom agent to perform HTTP requests. Find further information in the axios request config documentation.
httpsAgent	undefined	Custom agent to perform HTTPS requests. Find further information in the axios request config documentation.
adapter	undefined	Custom adapter to handle making the requests. Find further information in the axios request config documentation.
headers	{}	Additional headers to attach to the requests. We add/overwrite the following headers: Content-Type: application/vnd.contentful.delivery.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	undefined	Axios proxy configuration. See the axios request config documentation for further information about the supported values.
retryOnError	true	By default, this library is retrying requests which resulted in a 500 server error and 429 rate limit response. Set this to false to disable this behavior.
application	undefined	Application name and version e.g myApp/version.
integration	undefined	Integration name and version e.g react/version.
timeout	30000	in milliseconds - connection timeout.
retryLimit	5	Optional number of retries before failure.
logHandler	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.
requestLogger	function (config) {}	Interceptor called on every request. Takes Axios request config as an arg.
responseLogger	function (response) {}	Interceptor called on every response. Takes Axios response object as an arg.

Response configuration options

> ⚠️ Response config options have been removed in v10.0.0 in favor of the new client chain modifiers approach.

Client chain modifiers

> Introduced in v10.0.0.

The contentful.js library returns calls to sync, parseEntries, getEntries, getEntry, getAssets and getAsset in different shapes, depending on the configurations listed in the respective sections below.

In order to provide type support for each configuration, we provide the possibility to chain modifiers to the Contentful client, providing the correct return types corresponding to the used modifiers.

This way, we make developing with contentful.js much more predictable and safer.

When initialising a client, you will receive an instance of the ContentfulClientApi shape.

Entries

Chain	Modifier
none (default)	Returns entries in a single locale. Resolvable linked entries will be inlined while unresolvable links will be kept as link objects. Read more on link resolution
withAllLocales	Returns entries in all locales.
withoutLinkResolution	All linked entries will be rendered as link objects. Read more on link resolution
withoutUnresolvableLinks	If linked entries are not resolvable, the corresponding link objects are removed from the response.

Example

// returns entries in one locale, resolves linked entries, removing unresolvable links
const entries = await client.withoutUnresolvableLinks.getEntries()

You can also combine client chains:

// returns entries in all locales, resolves linked entries, removing unresolvable links
const entries = await client.withoutLinkResolution.withAllLocales.getEntries()

The default behaviour doesn't change, you can still do:

// returns entries in one locale, resolves linked entries, keeping unresolvable links as link object
const entries = await client.getEntries()

The same chaining approach can be used with parseEntries. Assuming this is the raw data we want to parse:

const localizedData = {
  total: 1,
  skip: 0,
  limit: 100,
  items: [
    {
      metadata: { tags: [] },
      sys: {
        space: {
          sys: { type: 'Link', linkType: 'Space', id: 'my-space-id' },
        },
        id: 'my-zoo',
        type: 'Entry',
        createdAt: '2020-01-01T00:00:00.000Z',
        updatedAt: '2020-01-01T00:00:00.000Z',
        environment: {
          sys: { id: 'master', type: 'Link', linkType: 'Environment' },
        },
        revision: 1,
        contentType: { sys: { type: 'Link', linkType: 'ContentType', id: 'zoo' } },
        locale: 'en-US',
      },
      fields: {
        animal: {
          'en-US': { sys: { type: 'Link', linkType: 'Entry', id: 'oink' } },
        },
        anotheranimal: {
          'en-US': { sys: { type: 'Link', linkType: 'Entry', id: 'middle-parrot' } },
        },
      },
    },
  ],
  includes: {
    Entry: [
      {
        metadata: { tags: [] },
        sys: {
          space: {
            sys: { type: 'Link', linkType: 'Space', id: 'my-space-id' },
          },
          id: 'oink',
          type: 'Entry',
          createdAt: '2020-01-01T00:00:00.000Z',
          updatedAt: '2020-02-01T00:00:00.000Z',
          environment: {
            sys: { id: 'master', type: 'Link', linkType: 'Environment' },
          },
          revision: 2,
          contentType: { sys: { type: 'Link', linkType: 'ContentType', id: 'animal' } },
          locale: 'en-US',
        },
        fields: {
          name: {
            'en-US': 'Pig',
            de: 'Schwein',
          },
          friend: {
            'en-US': { sys: { type: 'Link', linkType: 'Entry', id: 'groundhog' } },
          },
        },
      },
    ],
  },
}

It can be used to receive parsed entries with all locales:

// returns parsed entries in all locales
const entries = client.withAllLocales.parseEntries(localizedData)

Similarly, raw data without locales information can be parsed as well:

const data = {
  total: 1,
  skip: 0,
  limit: 100,
  items: [
    {
      metadata: { tags: [] },
      sys: {
        space: { sys: { type: 'Link', linkType: 'Space', id: 'my-space-id' } },
        id: 'my-zoo',
        type: 'Entry',
        createdAt: '2020-01-01T00:00:00.000Z',
        updatedAt: '2020-01-01T00:00:00.000Z',
        environment: { sys: { id: 'master', type: 'Link', linkType: 'Environment' } },
        revision: 1,
        contentType: { sys: { type: 'Link', linkType: 'ContentType', id: 'zoo' } },
        locale: 'en-US',
      },
      fields: {
        animal: { sys: { type: 'Link', linkType: 'Entry', id: 'oink' } },
        anotheranimal: { sys: { type: 'Link', linkType: 'Entry', id: 'middle-parrot' } },
      },
    },
  ],
  includes: {
    Entry: [
      {
        metadata: { tags: [] },
        sys: {
          space: { sys: { type: 'Link', linkType: 'Space', id: 'my-space-id' } },
          id: 'oink',
          type: 'Entry',
          createdAt: '2020-01-01T00:00:00.000Z',
          updatedAt: '2020-02-01T00:00:00.000Z',
          environment: { sys: { id: 'master', type: 'Link', linkType: 'Environment' } },
          revision: 2,
          contentType: { sys: { type: 'Link', linkType: 'ContentType', id: 'animal' } },
          locale: 'en-US',
        },
        fields: {
          name: 'Pig',
          friend: { sys: { type: 'Link', linkType: 'Entry', id: 'groundhog' } },
        },
      },
    ],
  },
}

// returns parsed entries keeping unresolvable links as link object
const entries = client.withoutLinkResolution.parseEntries(data)

Assets

Chain	Modifier
none (default)	Returns assets in a single locale.
withAllLocales	Returns assets in all locales.

Example

// returns assets in all locales
const assets = await client.withAllLocales.getAssets()

The default behaviour doesn't change, you can still do:

// returns assets in one locale
const assets = await client.getAssets()

Sync

The Sync API always retrieves all localized content, therefore withAllLocales is accepted, but ignored.

Chain	Modifier
none (default)	Returns content in all locales.
withoutLinkResolution	Linked content will be rendered as link objects. Read more on link resolution
withoutUnresolvableLinks	If linked content is not resolvable, the corresponding link objects are removed from the response.

Example

// returns content in all locales, resolves linked entries, removing unresolvable links
const { entries, assets, deletedEntries, deletedAssets } =
  await client.withoutUnresolvableLinks.sync({ initial: true })

More information on behavior of the Sync API can be found in the sync section in ADVANCED.md

Reference documentation

The JS library 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.

Tutorials & other resources

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

Troubleshooting

• I get the error: Unable to resolve module http. Our library 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')

• Is the library doing any caching? No, check this issue for more infos.

TypeScript

This library is 100% written in TypeScript. Type definitions are bundled. Find out more about the advantages of using this library in conjunction with TypeScript in the TYPESCRIPT document.

Advanced concepts

More information about how to use the library in advanced or special ways can be found in the ADVANCED document.

Migration

We gathered all information related to migrating from older versions of the library in our MIGRATION document.

Reach out to us

You have questions about how to use this library?

• Reach out to our community forum:
• Jump into our community Slack channel:

You found a bug or want to propose a feature?

• File an issue here on GitHub: Make sure to remove any credential from your code before sharing it.

You need to share confidential information or have other questions?

• File a support ticket at our Contentful Customer Support:

Get involved

We appreciate any help on our repositories. For more details about how to contribute see our CONTRIBUTING document.

License

This repository is published under the MIT license.

Code of Conduct

We want to provide a safe, inclusive, welcoming, and harassment-free space and experience for all participants, regardless of gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, socioeconomic status, body size, ethnicity, nationality, level of experience, age, religion (or lack thereof), or other identity markers.

Read our full Code of Conduct.