Headless API

A flexible query language for your content

Svalla uses GraphQL as its API layer. Unlike REST APIs where each endpoint returns a fixed structure, GraphQL lets you request exactly the data you need in a single query.

Benefits:

• No over-fetching — request only the fields you need, reducing response size
• Single endpoint — all queries go through one URL (/graphql)
• Strongly typed — the schema defines all available types and fields, with built-in documentation
• Nested queries — fetch a page with all its sections, categories, and related content in one request

Secure API access

The API uses token-based authentication:

• API tokens — generate tokens in Settings → API for your frontend application
• Bearer authentication — include the token in the Authorization header: Bearer your-token
• Scoped access — tokens can be restricted to specific paths and operations

Public queries (fetching published content) may not require authentication depending on your configuration, while mutations (creating form submissions, member login) always require proper authentication.

Fetch pages, posts, and sections

The most common API operations for your frontend:

• Get a page by URL — fetch a specific page using its slug, with all sections and content
• List posts — retrieve a list of posts from a post type, with pagination
• Get homepage — dedicated query for the homepage content
• Fetch blocks — retrieve global blocks (header, footer) for layouts
• Get translations — fetch i18n strings for UI elements
• Sitemap — retrieve the sitemap data for SEO

Each query returns structured data following the section definitions you created in the Builder. Your frontend maps this data to components.

Find exactly what you need

The API provides powerful filtering capabilities:

• Category filters — filter posts by one or multiple categories
• Property filters — filter by custom property values (price range, date, boolean flags)
• Full-text search — search across all content fields with language support
• Combined filters — combine category, property, and text filters with AND/OR logic
• Sorting — order results by date (newest/oldest), title (A-Z), or random

These filters enable dynamic content experiences on your frontend: blog archives with category filtering, product catalogs with property-based search, and more.

Handle large content sets efficiently

Content list queries support pagination for handling large collections:

• Limit — specify how many items to return per page
• Offset — skip a number of items for navigating pages
• Total count — the API returns the total number of matching items

With total count and limit, your frontend can calculate the number of pages and build pagination controls (previous, next, page numbers) for content listings.

Connect with any framework

Svalla's GraphQL API works with any frontend technology that can make HTTP requests. Common integrations:

• Next.js — server-side rendering with Apollo Client or urql for optimal performance and SEO
• React — client-side rendering with any GraphQL client
• Vue / Nuxt — use Vue Apollo or any GraphQL library
• Mobile apps — native iOS/Android apps consuming the same API
• Static sites — generate static pages at build time using API data

The recommended setup for web applications is Next.js with server-side rendering, which provides the best combination of performance, SEO, and developer experience.