What is an API?
An API, or "Application Programming Interface," is a set of protocols that allows you to easily connect and integrate various software and applications. An API enables your tools to exchange a certain amount of data, thereby automating certain tasks. These protocols simplify and facilitate data exchange, especially in an increasingly no-code ecosystem. APIs offer a no-code or low-code means of developing applications or websites much more easily and quickly. Since they provide a way to easily connect tools, APIs will help you optimize each of them.
What is the Webflow API used for?
The Webflow API is an open book on your website's CMS. It provides a wealth of information about your site, its structure, your collections, your items, and more. The diagram below illustrates how data is structured in Webflow. The Webflow API allows you to easily and quickly access three main types of data:
- The site-specific data: encompasses basic data related to site creation, its publication, its creator, and its unique “site ID.”
- The data from your collections: includes general information about the number of collections you have, the Collection ID, the slug, and the names of the collections.
- The data from your items: which provides more detailed information about the items, including their creation, modification, and publication dates, slug, Item ID, and more.
Thus, the Webflow API offers a wealth of data that enables you to connect (without coding) your Webflow site to other APIs or some of your tools.
How to use the Webflow API?
1 - Create an API key
A Webflow API key is a method of authentication for your website. It will identify your site and grant you access to all Webflow API requests. You can then use each of the HTTP requests (see 2) to leverage data from your website.
To create your first Webflow API key, go to your project settings by clicking on “Project settings.” Click on “Integration” and scroll down to the “API Access” section, then click on “Generate new API token.”
2 - Use Webflow HTTP requests
An HTTP request, or "Hypertext Transfer Protocol," is essentially a means of communication between web browsers and web servers. This is like the behind-the-scenes of the web, involving the “HTTP protocol.” Whenever a request is made in a browser, it is communicated via this HTTP protocol to a web server hosting the data. For instance, when you access a website, you send an HTTP request by clicking on the site’s URL, which then responds by displaying the web page. There are several HTTP request methods that indicate the action you wish to perform. These are often referred to as “HTTP verbs.”
Webflow provides several “HTTP verbs” for communicating with its API. Here are the HTTP verbs used by the Webflow API.
- GET - a method used to retrieve data from a server. By using the GET HTTP verb from Webflow, you can retrieve information about your site, items, collections, e-commerce products, etc.
- POST - a method used to send data to a server. In the case of Webflow, for example, you might use the HTTP POST request to publish a site, create a new collection, or a new item, etc.
- PUT - this HTTP verb allows you to update elements of your Webflow site, like items in your CMS.
- PATCH - similar to the PUT verb, this HTTP verb enables you to update elements of your Webflow site, but you can limit it to only the fields that need modification.
- DELETE - a request that allows you to delete elements from your CMS, such as an item, a collection, etc.
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3 - Use the Webflow API documentation
Webflow provides a Webflow API documentation free of charge for web developers or anyone interested in using its API. This comprehensive documentation provides all the resources needed to use the API through HTTP requests.
In this documentation, you will find all the information regarding the HTTP requests to use depending on the actions you wish to perform, various templates you can use to customize your requests, and more.
Whether for a showcase website, an e-commerce site, or a highly connected web platform, the Webflow API enables you to quickly and easily optimize and automate your website.
