Introduction

What is Contentful?

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
• Supported Environments
• Getting Started
  • Installation
    • Node
    • Browser
    • Typings
  • Authentication
  • Using ES6 import
  • Your first Request
  • Alternative plain API
• App Framework
• Troubleshooting
• Documentation/References
  • Configuration
  • Reference Documentation
  • Contentful Javascript resources
  • REST API reference
• Versioning
• Reach out to us
• Get involved
• License
• Code of Conduct

Features

• Content management and retrieval through Contentful's Content Management API.
• Built in rate limiting with recovery procedures
• Asset processing helpers

Supported environments

Browsers and Node.js:

• Chrome
• Firefox
• Edge
• Safari
• node.js (LTS)

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

To get started with the Contentful Management JS library you'll need to install it, and then get credentials which will allow you to access your content in Contentful.

• Installation
• Authentication
• Using ES6 import
• Your first request
• Troubleshooting
• Documentation/References

Installation

Node:

Using npm:

npm install contentful-management

Using yarn:

yarn add contentful-management

Browser:

For browsers, we recommend to download 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:

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

It's not recommended to use the above URL for production.

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

<!-- Avoid using the following url for production. You can not rely on its availability. -->
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/contentful-management.browser.min.js"></script>

The Contentful Management library will be accessible via the contentfulManagement global variable.

Check the releases page to know which versions are available.

Typings

This library also comes with typings to use with typescript.

Authentication

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

If you want to use this library for a simple tool or a local app that you won't redistribute or make available to other users, you can get an API key for the Management API at our Authentication page.

If you'd like to create an app which would make use of this library but that would be available for other users, where they could authenticate with their own Contentful credentials, make sure to also check out the section about Creating an OAuth Application

Using ES6 import

You can use the es6 import with the library as follows

// import createClient directly
import contentful from 'contentful-management'
const client = contentful.createClient(
  {
    // This is the access token for this space. Normally you get the token in the Contentful web app
    accessToken: 'YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN',
  },
  { type: 'plain' }
)
//....

Your first request

Beginning with contentful-management@7 this library provides a client which exposes all CMA endpoints in a simple flat API surface, as opposed to the waterfall structure exposed by legacy versions of the SDK.

const contentful = require('contentful-management')
const plainClient = contentful.createClient(
  {
    accessToken: 'YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN',
  },
  { type: 'plain' }
)

const environment = await plainClient.environment.get({
  spaceId: '<space_id>',
  environmentId: '<environment_id>',
})

const entries = await plainClient.entry.getMany({
  spaceId: '123',
  environmentId: '',
  query: {
    skip: 10,
    limit: 100,
  },
})

// With scoped space and environment
const scopedPlainClient = contentful.createClient(
  {
    accessToken: 'YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN',
  },
  {
    type: 'plain',
    defaults: {
      spaceId: '<space_id>',
      environmentId: '<environment_id>',
    },
  }
)

// entries from '<space_id>' & '<environment_id>'
const entries = await scopedPlainClient.entry.getMany({
  query: {
    skip: 10,
    limit: 100,
  },
})

You can try and change the above example on Runkit.

The benefits of using the "plain" version of the client, over the legacy version, are:

• The ability to reach any possible CMA endpoint without the necessity to call any async functions beforehand.
  • It's especially important if you're using this CMA client for non-linear scripts (for example, a complex Front-end application)
• All returned objects are simple Javascript objects without any wrappers. They can be easily serialized without an additional toPlainObject function call.
• The ability to scope CMA client instance to a specific spaceId, environmentId, and organizationId when initializing the client.
  • You can pass a concrete values to defaults and omit specifying these params in actual CMA methods calls.

Legacy Client Interface

The following code snippet is an example of the legacy client interface, which reads and writes data as a sequence of nested requests:

const contentful = require('contentful-management')
const client = contentful.createClient({
  accessToken: 'YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN',
})

// Get a space with the specified ID
client.getSpace('spaceId').then((space) => {
  // Get an environment within the space
  space.getEnvironment('master').then((environment) => {
    // Get entries from this environment
    environment.getEntries().then((entries) => {
      console.log(entries.items)
    })
    // Get a content type
    environment.getContentType('product').then((contentType) => {
      // Update its name
      contentType.name = 'New Product'
      contentType.update().then((updatedContentType) => {
        console.log('Update was successful')
      })
    })
  })
})

App Framework

Starting @contentful/app-sdk@4 you can use this client to make requests from your apps built for Contentful.

A dedicated Adapter grants your apps access to the supported space-environment scoped entities without compromising on security as you won't need to expose a management token, and without coding any additional backend middleware.

const contentfulApp = require('@contentful/app-sdk')
const contentful = require('contentful-management')

contentfulApp.init((sdk) => {
  const cma = contentful.createClient(
    { apiAdapter: sdk.cmaAdapter },
    {
      type: 'plain',
      defaults: {
        environmentId: sdk.ids.environmentAlias ?? sdk.ids.environment,
        spaceId: sdk.ids.space,
      },
    }
  )

  // ...rest of initialization code
})

Please Note

Requests issued by the App SDK adapter will count towards the same rate limiting quota as the ones made by other APIs exposed by App SDK (e.g., Space API). Ultimately, they will all fall into the same bucket as the calls performed by the host app (i.e., Contentful web app, Compose, or Launch).

Troubleshooting

• I can't Install the package via npm - Check your internet connection - It is called contentful-management and not contenful-management ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
• Can I use the library in react native projects - Yes it is possible
• 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-management/dist/contentful-management.browser.min.js')
• I am not sure what payload to send when creating and entity (Asset/Entity/ContentType etc...) - Check the Content Management API docs or the examples in the reference docs - Feel free to open an issue if you didn't find what you need in the above links
• 😱 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. - Please do not share your management token in a GitHub issue

Documentation/References

To help you get the most out of this library, 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, when apiAdapter is not set)

Your CMA access token.

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

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

hostUpload (default: 'upload.contentful.com')

Set the host used to build the upload related 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-management.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.

retryOnError (default: 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.

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.

requestLogger (default: function (config) {})

Interceptor called on every request. Takes Axios request config as an arg. Default does nothing. Pass your own function to log any desired data.

responseLogger (default: function (response) {})

Interceptor called on every response. Takes Axios response object as an arg. Default does nothing. Pass your own function to log any desired data.

apiAdapter (default: new RestAdapter(configuration))

An Adapter that can be utilized to issue requests. It defaults to a RestAdapter initialized with provided configuration.

Please Note

The Adapter will take precedence over the other options. Therefore, ensure you're providing the Adapter all the information it needs to issue the request (e.g., host or auth headers)

throttle (default: 0)

Maximum number of requests per second.

• 1-30 (fixed number of limit),
• 'auto' (calculated limit based on your plan),
• '0%' - '100%' (calculated % limit based on your plan)

Reference documentation

The Contentful's 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.

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

The ContentfulClientAPI namespace defines the methods at the Client level which allow you to create and get spaces.

The ContentfulSpaceAPI namespace defines the methods at the Space level which allow you to create and get entries, assets, content types and other possible entities.

The Entry, Asset and ContentType namespaces show you the instance methods you can use on each of these entities, once you retrieve them from the server.

From version 1.0.0 onwards, you can access documentation for a specific version by visiting https://contentful.github.io/contentful-management.js/contentful-management/<VERSION>

Contentful JavaScript resources

Read 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 Management 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.

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.

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.md 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.