Skip to main content

REST API

The REST API allows accessing the content-types through API endpoints. Strapi automatically creates API endpoints when a content-type is created. API parameters can be used when querying API endpoints to refine the results.

✏️ Note

All content types are private by default and need to be either made public or queries need to be authenticated with the proper permissions. See the Quick Start Guide, the user guide for the Users & Permissions plugin, and API tokens configuration documentation for more details.

Caution

The REST API by default does not populate any relations, media fields, components, or dynamic zones. Use the populate parameter to populate specific fields. Ensure that the find permission is given to the field(s) for the relation(s) you populate.

🤓 Upload plugin API

The Upload plugin (which handles media found in the Media Library) has a different API described in the Upload plugin documentation.

Endpoints

For each Content-Type, the following endpoints are automatically generated:

MethodURLDescription
GET/api/:pluralApiIdGet a list of entries
POST/api/:pluralApiIdCreate an entry
GET/api/:pluralApiId/:documentIdGet an entry
PUT/api/:pluralApiId/:documentIdUpdate an entry
DELETE/api/:pluralApiId/:documentIdDelete an entry
Examples:

Restaurant Content type

MethodURLDescription
GET/api/restaurantsGet a list of restaurants
POST/api/restaurantsCreate a restaurant
GET/api/restaurants/:idGet a specific restaurant
DELETE/api/restaurants/:idDelete a restaurant
PUT/api/restaurants/:idUpdate a restaurant
✏️ Note

Components don't have API endpoints.

💡 Tip

API endpoints are prefixed with /api by default. This can be changed by setting a different value for the rest.prefix configuration parameter (see API calls configuration).

Requests

Requests return a response as an object which usually includes the following keys:

  • data: the response data itself, which could be:

    • a single entry, as an object with the following keys:
      • id (number)
      • attributes (object)
      • meta (object)
    • a list of entries, as an array of objects
    • a custom response
  • meta (object): information about pagination, publication state, available locales, etc.

  • error (object, optional): information about any error thrown by the request

✏️ Note

Some plugins (including Users & Permissions and Upload) may not follow this response format.

Get entries

Returns entries matching the query filters (see API parameters documentation).

Example request

GET http://localhost:1337/api/restaurants

Example response
{
"data": [
{
"id": 1,
"attributes": {
"title": "Restaurant A",
"description": "Restaurant A's description"
},
"meta": {
"availableLocales": []
}
},
{
"id": 2,
"attributes": {
"title": "Restaurant B",
"description": "Restaurant B's description"
},
"meta": {
"availableLocales": []
}
},
],
"meta": {}
}

Get an entry

Returns an entry by id.

Example request

GET http://localhost:1337/api/restaurants/1

Example response
{
"data": {
"id": 1,
"attributes": {
"title": "Restaurant A",
"description": "Restaurant A's description"
},
"meta": {
"availableLocales": []
}
},
"meta": {}
}

Create an entry

Creates an entry and returns its value.

If the Internationalization (i18n) plugin is installed, it's possible to use POST requests to the REST API to create localized entries.

✏️ Note

While creating an entry, you can define its relations and their order (see Managing relations through the REST API for more details).

Example request

POST http://localhost:1337/api/restaurants

{
"data": {
"title": "Hello",
"relation_field_a": 2,
"relation_field_b": [2, 4],
"link": {
"id": 1,
"type": "abc"
}
}
}
Example response
{
"data": {
"id": 1,
"attributes": {},
"meta": {}
},
"meta": {}
}

Update an entry

Partially updates an entry by id and returns its value.

Fields that aren't sent in the query are not changed in the database. Send a null value to clear fields.

✏️ NOTES
Example request

PUT http://localhost:1337/api/restaurants/1

{
"data": {
"title": "Hello",
"relation_field_a": 2,
"relation_field_b": [2, 4],
}
}
Example response
{
"data": {
"id": 1,
"attributes": {},
"meta": {}
},
"meta": {}
}

Delete an entry

Deletes an entry by id and returns its value.

Example request

DELETE http://localhost:1337/api/restaurants/1

Example response
{
"data": {
"id": 1,
"attributes": {},
"meta": {}
},
"meta": {}
}