REST API reference

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.

This section of the documentation is for the REST API reference. We also have guides available for specific use cases.

☑️ Prerequisites

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.

✏️ Note

By default, the REST API responses only include top-level fields and 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 specific API described in the Upload plugin documentation.

Endpoints

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

Plural API ID vs. Singular API ID:

In the following tables:

• :singularApiId refers to the value of the "API ID (Singular)" field of the content-type,
• and :pluralApiId refers to the value of the "API ID (Plural)" field of the content-type.

These values are defined when creating a content-type in the Content-Type Builder, and can be found while editing a content-type in the admin panel (see User Guide). For instance, by default, for an "Article" content-type:

• :singularApiId will be article
• :pluralApiId will be articles

Collection type

Method	URL	Description
GET	/api/:pluralApiId	Get a list of document
POST	/api/:pluralApiId	Create a document
GET	/api/:pluralApiId/:documentId	Get a document
PUT	/api/:pluralApiId/:documentId	Update a document
DELETE	/api/:pluralApiId/:documentId	Delete a document

Single type

Method	URL	Description
GET	/api/:singularApiId	Get a document
PUT	/api/:singularApiId	Update/Create a document
DELETE	/api/:singularApiId	Delete a document

Real-world examples of endpoints:

The following endpoint examples are taken from the FoodAdvisor example application.

Collection type

Restaurant Content type

Method	URL	Description
GET	/api/restaurants	Get a list of restaurants
POST	/api/restaurants	Create a restaurant
GET	/api/restaurants/:documentId	Get a specific restaurant
DELETE	/api/restaurants/:documentId	Delete a restaurant
PUT	/api/restaurants/:documentId	Update a restaurant

Single type

Homepage Content type

Method	URL	Description
GET	/api/homepage	Get the homepage content
PUT	/api/homepage	Update/create the homepage content
DELETE	/api/homepage	Delete the homepage content

✏️ Note

Components don't have API endpoints.

Requests

🤓 Strapi 5 vs. Strapi v4

Strapi 5's Content API includes 2 major differences with Strapi v4:

• The response format has been flattened, which means attributes are no longer nested in a data.attributes object and are directly accessible at the first level of the data object (e.g., a content-type's "title" attribute is accessed with data.title).
• Strapi 5 now uses documents and documents are accessed by their documentId.

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

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

  • a single document, as an object with the following keys:
    • id (integer)
    • documentId (string), which is the unique identifier to use when querying a given document,
    • the attributes (each attribute's type depends on the attribute, see models attributes documentation for details)
    • meta (object)
  • a list of documents, 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 documents

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

💡 Tip: Strapi 5 vs. Strapi 4

In Strapi 5 the response format has been flattened, and attributes are directly accessible from the data object instead of being nested in data.attributes.

You can pass an optional header while you're migrating to Strapi 5 (see the related breaking change).

Example request

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

Example response

{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": 2,
      "documentId": "hgv1vny5cebq2l3czil1rpb3",
      "Name": "BMK Paris Bamako",
      "Description": null,
      "createdAt": "2024-03-06T13:42:05.098Z",
      "updatedAt": "2024-03-06T13:42:05.098Z",
      "publishedAt": "2024-03-06T13:42:05.103Z",
      "locale": "en"
    },
    {
      "id": 4,
      "documentId": "znrlzntu9ei5onjvwfaalu2v",
      "Name": "Biscotte Restaurant",
      "Description": [
        {
          "type": "paragraph",
          "children": [
            {
              "type": "text",
              "text": "Welcome to Biscotte restaurant! Restaurant Biscotte offers a cuisine based on fresh, quality products, often local, organic when possible, and always produced by passionate producers."
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "createdAt": "2024-03-06T13:43:30.172Z",
      "updatedAt": "2024-03-06T13:43:30.172Z",
      "publishedAt": "2024-03-06T13:43:30.175Z",
      "locale": "en"
    }
  ],
  "meta": {
    "pagination": {
      "page": 1,
      "pageSize": 25,
      "pageCount": 1,
      "total": 2
    }
  }
}

Get a document

Returns a document by documentId.

🤓 Strapi 5 vs. Strapi v4

In Strapi 5, a specific document is reached by its documentId.

Example request

GET http://localhost:1337/api/restaurants/j964065dnjrdr4u89weh79xl

Example response

{
  "data": {
    "id": 6,
    "documentId": "znrlzntu9ei5onjvwfaalu2v",
    "Name": "Biscotte Restaurant",
    "Description": [
      {
        "type": "paragraph",
        "children": [
          {
            "type": "text",
            "text": "Welcome to Biscotte restaurant! Restaurant Biscotte offers a cuisine bassics, such as 4 Formaggi or Calzone, and our original creations such as Do Luigi or Nduja."
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "createdAt": "2024-02-27T10:19:04.953Z",
    "updatedAt": "2024-03-05T15:52:05.591Z",
    "publishedAt": "2024-03-05T15:52:05.600Z",
    "locale": "en"
  },
  "meta": {}
}

Create a document

Creates a document 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 documents.

✏️ Note

While creating a document, 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": {
    "Name": "Restaurant D",
    "Description": [ // uses the "Rich text (blocks)" field type
      {
        "type": "paragraph",
        "children": [
          {
            "type": "text",
            "text": "A very short description goes here."
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Example response

{
  "data": {
    "documentId": "bw64dnu97i56nq85106yt4du",
    "Name": "Restaurant D",
    "Description": [
      {
        "type": "paragraph",
        "children": [
          {
            "type": "text",
            "text": "A very short description goes here."
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "createdAt": "2024-03-05T16:44:47.689Z",
    "updatedAt": "2024-03-05T16:44:47.689Z",
    "publishedAt": "2024-03-05T16:44:47.687Z",
    "locale": "en"
  },
  "meta": {}
}

Update a document

Partially updates a document by id and returns its value.

Send a null value to clear fields.

✏️ NOTES

• Even unmodified fields must be included in the request's body.
• Even with the Internationalization (i18n) plugin installed, it's currently not possible to update the locale of a document.
• While updating a document, you can define its relations and their order (see Managing relations through the REST API for more details).

Example request

PUT http://localhost:1337/api/restaurants/hgv1vny5cebq2l3czil1rpb3

{ 
  "data": {
    "Name": "BMK Paris Bamako", // we didn't change this field but still need to include it
    "Description": [ // uses the "Rich text (blocks)" field type
      {
        "type": "paragraph",
        "children": [
          {
            "type": "text",
            "text": "A very short description goes here."
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Example response

{
  "data": {
    "id": 9,
    "documentId": "hgv1vny5cebq2l3czil1rpb3",
    "Name": "BMK Paris Bamako",
    "Description": [
      {
        "type": "paragraph",
        "children": [
          {
            "type": "text",
            "text": "A very short description goes here."
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "createdAt": "2024-03-06T13:42:05.098Z",
    "updatedAt": "2024-03-06T14:16:56.883Z",
    "publishedAt": "2024-03-06T14:16:56.895Z",
    "locale": "en"
  },
  "meta": {}
}

Delete a document

Deletes a document.

DELETE requests only send a 204 HTTP status code on success and do not return any data in the response body.

Example request

DELETE http://localhost:1337/api/restaurants/bw64dnu97i56nq85106yt4du