GRAPHQL

Gatsby (graphql)

This guide will help you get started using Netlify CMS and Gatsby.

To get up and running with Gatsby, you’ll need to have Node.js installed on your computer. Note: Gatsby's minimum supported Node.js version is Node 8.

Create a new Gatsby site

Let's create a new site using the default Gatsby Starter Blog. Run the following commands in the terminal, in the folder where you'd like to create the blog:

npm install -g gatsby-cli
gatsby new blog https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby-starter-blog
cd blog

Get to know Gatsby

In your favorite code editor, open up the code generated for your "Gatsby Starter Blog" site, and take a look at the content directory.

You will see that there are multiple Markdown files that represent blog posts. Open one .md file and you will see something like this:

---
title: New Beginnings
date: "2015-05-28T22:40:32.169Z"
description: This is an optional description for SEO and Open Graph purposes, rather than the default generated excerpt.
---

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and
Consonantia, there live the blind texts.

We can see above that each blog post has a title, a date, a description and a body. Now, let's recreate this using Netlify CMS.

Add Netlify CMS to your site

First let's install some dependencies. We'll need netlify-cms-app and gatsby-plugin-netlify-cms. Run the following command in the terminal at the root of your site:

npm install --save netlify-cms-app gatsby-plugin-netlify-cms

Configuration

For the purpose of this guide we will deploy to Netlify from a GitHub repository which requires the minimum configuration.

Create a config.yml file in the directory structure you see below:

├── static
│   ├── admin
│   │   ├── config.yml

In your config.yml file paste the following configuration:

backend:
  name: git-gateway
  branch: main # Branch to update (optional; defaults to master)

media_folder: static/img
public_folder: /img

collections:
  - name: 'blog'
    label: 'Blog'
    folder: 'content/blog'
    create: true
    slug: 'index'
    media_folder: ''
    public_folder: ''
    path: '{{title}}/index'
    editor:
      preview: false
    fields:
      - { label: 'Title', name: 'title', widget: 'string' }
      - { label: 'Publish Date', name: 'date', widget: 'datetime' }
      - { label: 'Description', name: 'description', widget: 'string' }
      - { label: 'Body', name: 'body', widget: 'markdown' }

Note: The above configuration allows assets to be stored relative to their content. Therefore posts would be stored in the format below as it is in gatsby-starter-blog.

content/
├── blog
│   ├── first-post-title
│   │   ├── index.md
│   │   └── post-image.jpg
└── └── second-post-title
        ├── index.md
        └── post-image.jpg

Finally, add the plugin to your gatsby-config.js.

plugins: [`gatsby-plugin-netlify-cms`]

Push to GitHub

It's now time to commit your changes and push to GitHub. The Gatsby starter initializes Git automatically for you, so you only need to do:

git add .
git commit -m "Initial Commit"
git remote add origin https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/NEW_REPO_NAME.git
git push -u origin main

Add your repo to Netlify

Go to Netlify and select 'New Site from Git'. Select GitHub and the repository you just pushed to. Click Configure Netlify on GitHub and give access to your repository. Finish the setup by clicking Deploy Site. Netlify will begin reading your repository and starting building your project.

Enable Identity and Git Gateway

Netlify's Identity and Git Gateway services allow you to manage CMS admin users for your site without requiring them to have an account with your Git host or commit access on your repo. From your site dashboard on Netlify:

1. Go to Settings > Identity, and select Enable Identity service.

2. Under Registration preferences, select Open or Invite only. In most cases, you want only invited users to access your CMS, but if you're just experimenting, you can leave it open for convenience.

3. If you'd like to allow one-click login with services like Google and GitHub, check the boxes next to the services you'd like to use, under External providers.

4. Scroll down to Services > Git Gateway, and click Enable Git Gateway. This authenticates with your Git host and generates an API access token. In this case, we're leaving the Roles field blank, which means any logged in user may access the CMS. For information on changing this, check the Netlify Identity documentation.

Start publishing

It's time to create your first blog post. Login to your site's /admin/ page and create a new post by clicking New Blog. Add a title, a date and some text. When you click Publish, a new commit will be created in your GitHub repo with this format Create Blog “year-month-date-title”.

Then Netlify will detect that there was a commit in your repo, and will start rebuilding your project. When your project is deployed you'll be able to see the post you created.

Cleanup

It is now safe to remove the default Gatsby blog posts.

About the GraphQL API

The GitHub GraphQL API offers flexibility and the ability to define precisely the data you want to fetch.

In this article

• Overview

• About GraphQL

• Why GitHub is using GraphQL

• About the GraphQL schema reference

• Requesting support

Overview

Here are some quick links to get you up and running with the GraphQL API v4:

• Authentication

• Root endpoint

• Schema introspection

• Rate limits

• Migrating from REST

About GraphQL

The GraphQL data query language is:

• A specification. The spec determines the validity of the schema on the API server. The schema determines the validity of client calls.

• Strongly typed. The schema defines an API's type system and all object relationships.

• Introspective. A client can query the schema for details about the schema.

• Hierarchical. The shape of a GraphQL call mirrors the shape of the JSON data it returns. Nested fields let you query for and receive only the data you specify in a single round trip.

• An application layer. GraphQL is not a storage model or a database query language. The graph refers to graph structures defined in the schema, where nodes define objects and edges define relationships between objects. The API traverses and returns application data based on the schema definitions, independent of how the data is stored.

Why GitHub is using GraphQL

GitHub chose GraphQL for our API v4 because it offers significantly more flexibility for our integrators. The ability to define precisely the data you want—and only the data you want—is a powerful advantage over the REST API v3 endpoints. GraphQL lets you replace multiple REST requests with a single call to fetch the data you specify.

For more details about why GitHub has moved to GraphQL, see the original announcement blog post.

About the GraphQL schema reference

The docs in the sidebar are generated from the GitHub GraphQL schema. All calls are validated and executed against the schema. Use these docs to find out what data you can call:

• Allowed operations: queries and mutations.

• Schema-defined types: scalars, objects, enums, interfaces, unions, and input objects.

You can access this same content via the Explorer Docs sidebar. Note that you may need to rely on both the docs and the schema validation to successfully call the GraphQL API.

For other information, such as authentication and rate limit details, check out the guides.

Requesting support

For questions, bug reports, and discussions about GitHub Apps, OAuth Apps, and API development, explore the GitHub API Development and Support Forum. The forum is moderated and maintained by GitHub staff, but questions posted to the forum are not guaranteed to receive a reply from GitHub staff.

Consider reaching out to GitHub Support directly using the contact form for:

• guaranteed response from GitHub staff

• support requests involving sensitive data or private concerns

• feature requests

• feedback about GitHub products

Overview

A backend is JavaScript code that allows Netlify CMS to communicate with a service that stores content - typically a Git host like GitHub or GitLab. It provides functions that Netlify CMS can use to do things like read and update files using API's provided by the service.

Backend Configuration

Individual backends should provide their own configuration documentation, but there are some configuration options that are common to multiple backends. A full reference is below. Note that these are properties of the backend field, and should be nested under that field.

Field	Default	Description
repo	none	Required for github, gitlab, and bitbucket backends; ignored by git-gateway. Follows the pattern [org-or-username]/[repo-name].
branch	master	The branch where published content is stored. All CMS commits and PRs are made to this branch.
api_root	https://api.github.com (GitHub), https://gitlab.com/api/v4 (GitLab), or https://api.bitbucket.org/2.0 (Bitbucket)	The API endpoint. Only necessary in certain cases, like with GitHub Enterprise or self-hosted GitLab.
site_domain	location.hostname (or cms.netlify.com when on localhost)	Sets the site_id query param sent to the API endpoint. Non-Netlify auth setups will often need to set this for local development to work properly.
base_url	https://api.netlify.com (GitHub, Bitbucket) or https://gitlab.com (GitLab)	OAuth client hostname (just the base domain, no path). Required when using an external OAuth server or self-hosted GitLab.
auth_endpoint	auth (GitHub, Bitbucket) or oauth/authorize (GitLab)	Path to append to base_url for authentication requests. Optional.
cms_label_prefix	netlify-cms/	Pull (or Merge) Requests label prefix when using editorial workflow. Optional.

Creating a New Backend

Anyone can write a backend, but we don't yet have a finalized and documented API. If you would like to write your own backend for a service that does not have one currently, we recommend using the GitHub backend as a reference for API and best practices.

Creating Custom Widgets

The NetlifyCMS exposes a window.CMS a global object that you can use to register custom widgets, previews, and editor plugins. The same object is also the default export if you import Netlify CMS as an npm module. The available widget extension methods are:

• registerWidget: registers a custom widget.

• registerEditorComponent: adds a block component to the Markdown editor.

Writing React Components inline

The registerWidget requires you to provide a React component. If you have a build process in place for your project, it is possible to integrate with this build process.

However, although possible, it may be cumbersome or even impractical to add a React build phase. For this reason, NetlifyCMS exposes two constructs globally to allow you to create components inline: ‘createClass’ and ‘h’ (alias for React.createElement).

registerWidget

Register a custom widget.

// Using global window object
CMS.registerWidget(name, control, [preview], [schema]);

// Using npm module import
import CMS from 'netlify-cms';
CMS.registerWidget(name, control, [preview], [schema]);

Params:

Param	Type	Description
name	string	Widget name, allows this widget to be used via the field widget property in config
control	React.Component or string	React component that renders the control, receives the following props: value: Current field value field: Immutable map of current field configuration forID: Unique identifier for the field classNameWrapper: class name to apply CMS styling to the field onChange: Callback function to update the field value Name of a registered widget whose control should be used (includes built in widgets).
[preview]	React.Component, optional	Renders the widget preview, receives the following props: value: Current preview value field: Immutable map of current field configuration metadata: Immutable map of any available metadata for the current field getAsset: Function for retrieving an asset url for image/file fields entry: Immutable Map of all entry data fieldsMetaData: Immutable map of metadata from all fields.
[schema]	JSON Schema object, optional	Enforces a schema for the widget's field configuration

Example:

admin/index.html

<script src="https://unpkg.com/netlify-cms@^2.0.0/dist/netlify-cms.js"></script>
<script>
var CategoriesControl = createClass({
  handleChange: function(e) {
    const separator = this.props.field.get('separator', ', ')
    this.props.onChange(e.target.value.split(separator).map((e) => e.trim()));
  },

  render: function() {
    const separator = this.props.field.get('separator', ', ');
    var value = this.props.value;
    return h('input', {
      id: this.props.forID,
      className: this.props.classNameWrapper,
      type: 'text',
      value: value ? value.join(separator) : '',
      onChange: this.handleChange,
    });
  },
});

var CategoriesPreview = createClass({
  render: function() {
    return h('ul', {},
      this.props.value.map(function(val, index) {
        return h('li', {key: index}, val);
      })
    );
  }
});

var schema = {
  properties: {
    separator: { type: 'string' },
  },
}

CMS.registerWidget('categories', CategoriesControl, CategoriesPreview, schema);
</script>

admin/config.yml

collections:
  - name: posts
    label: Posts
    folder: content/posts
    fields:
      - name: title
        label: Title
        widget: string
      - name: categories
        label: Categories
        widget: categories
        separator: __

registerEditorComponent

Register a block level component for the Markdown editor:

CMS.registerEditorComponent(definition)

Params

• definition: The component definition; must specify: id, label, fields, patterns, fromBlock, toBlock, toPreview

Example:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/netlify-cms@^2.0.0/dist/netlify-cms.js"></script>
<script>
CMS.registerEditorComponent({
  // Internal id of the component
  id: "collapsible-note",
  // Visible label
  label: "Collapsible Note",
  // Fields the user need to fill out when adding an instance of the component
  fields: [
    {
      name: 'summary',
      label: 'Summary',
      widget: 'string'
    },
    {
      name: 'details',
      label: 'Details',
      widget: 'markdown'
    }
  ],
  // Regex pattern used to search for instances of this block in the markdown document.
  // Patterns are run in a multline environment (against the entire markdown document),
  // and so generally should make use of the multiline flag (`m`). If you need to capture
  // newlines in your capturing groups, you can either use something like
  // `([\S\s]*)`, or you can additionally enable the "dot all" flag (`s`),
  // which will cause `(.*)` to match newlines as well.
  //
  // Additionally, it's recommended that you use non-greedy capturing groups (e.g.
  // `(.*?)` vs `(.*)`), especially if matching against newline characters.
  pattern: /^<details>$\s*?<summary>(.*?)<\/summary>\n\n(.*?)\n^<\/details>$/ms,
  // Given a RegExp Match object
  // (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/String/match#return_value),
  // return an object with one property for each field defined in `fields`.
  //
  // This is used to populate the custom widget in the markdown editor in the CMS.
  fromBlock: function(match) {
    return {
      summary: match[1],
      detail: match[2]
    };
  },
  // Given an object with one property for each field defined in `fields`,
  // return the string you wish to be inserted into your markdown.
  //
  // This is used to serialize the data from the custom widget to the
  // markdown document
  toBlock: function(data) {
    return `
<details>
  <summary>${data.summary}</summary>

  ${data.detail}

</details>
`;
  },
  // Preview output for this component. Can either be a string or a React component
  // (component gives better render performance)
  toPreview: function(data) {
    return `
<details>
  <summary>${data.summary}</summary>

  ${data.detail}

</details>
`;
  }
});
</script>

Result:


Advanced field validation

All widget fields, including those for built-in widgets, include basic validation capability using the required and pattern options.

With custom widgets, the widget control can also optionally implement an isValid method to perform custom validations, in addition to presence and pattern. The isValid method will be automatically called, and it can return either a boolean value, an object with an error message or a promise. Examples:

Boolean No errors:

  isValid = () => {
    // Do internal validation
    return true;
  };

Existing error:

  isValid = () => {
    // Do internal validation
    return false;
  };

Object with error (useful for returning custom error messages) Existing error:

  isValid = () => {
    // Do internal validation
    return { error: { message: 'Your error message.' } };
  };

Promise You can also return a promise from isValid. While the promise is pending, the widget will be marked as "in error". When the promise resolves, the error is automatically cleared.

  isValid = () => {
    return this.existingPromise;
  };

Note: Do not create a promise inside isValid - isValid is called right before trying to persist. This means that even if a previous promise was already resolved, when the user hits 'save', isValid will be called again. If it returns a new promise, it will be immediately marked as "in error" until the new promise resolves.

Writing custom widgets as a separate package

Widgets are inputs for the Netlify CMS editor interface. It's a React component that receives user input and outputs a serialized value. Those are the only rules - the component can be extremely simple, like text input, or extremely complicated, like a full-blown markdown editor. They can make calls to external services, and generally do anything that JavaScript can do.

For writing custom widgets as a separate package you should follow these steps:

1. Create a directory

   mkdir my-custom-widget

2. Navigate to the directory

   cd my-custom-widget

3. For setting up a new npm package run this command:

   npm init

4. Answer the questions in the command line questionnaire.

5. In order to build React components, we need to set up a build step. We'll be using Webpack. Please run the following commands to install the required dependencies:

   npm install --save-dev babel-loader@7 babel-core babel-plugin-transform-class-properties babel-plugin-transform-export-extensions babel-plugin-transform-object-rest-spread babel-preset-env babel-preset-react cross-env css-loader html-webpack-plugin netlify-cms react source-map-loader style-loader webpack webpack-cli webpack-serve

   npm install --save prop-types

And you should manually add "peerDependencies" and "scripts" as shown below.

Here is the content of package.json that you will have at the end:

{
  "name": "netlify-cms-widget-starter",
  "description": "A boilerplate for creating Netlify CMS widgets.",
  "author": "name of developer",
  "keywords": [
    "netlify",
    "netlify-cms",
    "cms",
    "widget",
    "starter",
    "boilerplate"
  ],
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "homepage": "https://github.com/netlify/netlify-cms-widget-starter",
  "license": "MIT",
  "main": "dist/main.js",
  "devDependencies": {
    "babel-loader": "^7.1.4",
    "babel-plugin-transform-class-properties": "^6.24.1",
    "babel-plugin-transform-export-extensions": "^6.22.0",
    "babel-plugin-transform-object-rest-spread": "^6.26.0",
    "babel-preset-env": "^1.6.1",
    "babel-preset-react": "^6.24.1",
    "cross-env": "^5.1.4",
    "css-loader": "^0.28.11",
    "html-webpack-plugin": "^3.2.0",
    "netlify-cms": "^1.5.0",
    "react": "^16.3.2",
    "source-map-loader": "^0.2.3",
    "style-loader": "^0.20.3",
    "webpack": "^4.6.0",
    "webpack-cli": "^2.0.14",
    "webpack-serve": "^0.3.1"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "prop-types": "^15.6.1"
  },
  "peerDependencies": {
    "react": "^16"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "start": "webpack-serve --static public --open"
  }
}

1. Create a Webpack configuration file with this content:

   webpack.config.js

   const path = require('path')
   const HtmlWebpackPlugin = require('html-webpack-plugin')
   
   const developmentConfig = {
     mode: 'development',
     entry: './dev/index.js',
     output: {
       path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'public'),
     },
     optimization: { minimize: false },
     module: {
       rules: [
         {
           test: /\.js$/,
           loader: 'source-map-loader',
           enforce: 'pre',
         },
         {
           test: /\.jsx?$/,
           exclude: /node_modules/,
           loader: 'babel-loader',
         },
         {
           test: /\.css$/,
           use: [{ loader: 'style-loader' }, { loader: 'css-loader' }],
         },
       ],
     },
     plugins: [
       new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
     ],
     devtool: 'eval-source-map',
   }
   
   const productionConfig = {
     mode: 'production',
     module: {
       rules: [
         {
           test: /\.jsx?$/,
           loader: 'babel-loader',
         },
       ],
     },
     devtool: 'source-map',
   }
   
   module.exports = process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production' ? productionConfig : developmentConfig

2. The .babelrc file is our local configuration for our code in the project. You should create it under the root of the application repo. It will affect all files that Babel processes. So, create a .babelrc file under the main project with this content:

{
  "presets": [
    "react",
    "env",
  ],
  "plugins": [
    "transform-export-extensions",
    "transform-class-properties",
    "transform-object-rest-spread",
  ],
}

1. Create a src directory with the files Control.js, Preview.js and index.js

src/Control.js

 import PropTypes from 'prop-types';
 import React from 'react';

 export default class Control extends React.Component {
   static propTypes = {
     onChange: PropTypes.func.isRequired,
     forID: PropTypes.string,
     value: PropTypes.node,
     classNameWrapper: PropTypes.string.isRequired,
   }

   static defaultProps = {
     value: '',
   }

   render() {
     const {
       forID,
       value,
       onChange,
       classNameWrapper,
     } = this.props;

     return (
       <input
         type="text"
         id={forID}
         className={classNameWrapper}
         value={value || ''}
         onChange={e => onChange(e.target.value)}
       />
     );
   }
 }

src/Preview.js

import PropTypes from 'prop-types';
import React from 'react';

export default function Preview({ value }) {
  return <div>{ value }</div>;
}

Preview.propTypes = {
  value: PropTypes.node,
};

src/index.js

import Control from './Control'
import Preview from './Preview'

if (typeof window !== 'undefined') {
  window.Control = Control
  window.Preview = Preview
}

export { Control, Preview }

1. Now you need to set up the locale example site. Under the main project, create a dev directory with the files bootstrap.js and index.js

bootstrap.js

window.CMS_MANUAL_INIT = true

index.js

import './bootstrap.js'
import CMS, { init } from 'netlify-cms'
import 'netlify-cms/dist/cms.css'
import { Control, Preview } from '../src'

const config = {
backend: {
 name: 'test-repo',
 login: false,
},
media_folder: 'assets',
collections: [{
 name: 'test',
 label: 'Test',
 files: [{
   file: 'test.yml',
   name: 'test',
   label: 'Test',
   fields: [
     { name: 'test_widget', label: 'Test Widget', widget: 'test'},
   ],
 }],
}],
}

CMS.registerWidget('test', Control, Preview)

init({ config })

Development

To run a copy of Netlify CMS with your widget for development, use the start script:

npm start

Your widget source is in the src directory, where there are separate files for the Control and Preview components.

Production & Publishing

You'll want to take a few steps before publishing a production built package to npm:

1. Customize package.json with details for your specific widget, e.g. name, description, author, version, etc.

   {
     "name": "netlify-cms-widget-starter",
     "description": "A boilerplate for creating Netlify CMS widgets.",
     "author": "name of developer",
     "keywords": [
       "netlify",
       "netlify-cms",
       "cms",
       "widget",
       "starter",
       "boilerplate"
     ],
     "version": "0.0.1",
     // ... rest
   }

2. For discoverability, ensure that your package name follows the pattern netlify-cms-widget-<name>.

3. Delete this README.md, rename README_TEMPLATE.md to README.md, and update the new file for your specific widget.

4. Rename the exports in src/index.js. For example, if your widget is netlify-cms-widget-awesome, you would do:

if (typeof window !== 'undefined') {
  window.AwesomeControl = Control
  window.AwesomePreview = Preview
}

export { Control as AwesomeControl, Preview as AwesomePreview }

1. Optional: customize the component and file names in src.

2. If you haven't already, push your repo to your GitHub account so the source available to other developers.

3. Create a production build, which will be output to dist:

npm run build

1. Finally, if you're sure things are tested and working, publish!

npm publish