Kirby QL

Kirby's Query Language API combines the flexibility of Kirby's data structures, the power of GraphQL and the simplicity of REST.

The Kirby QL API takes POST requests with standard JSON objects and returns highly customized results that fit your application.

Example

POST: /api/query

{
    "query": "page('photography').children",
    "select": {
        "url": true,
        "title": true,
        "text": "page.text.markdown",
        "images": {
            "query": "page.images",
            "select": {
                "url": true
            }
        }
    },
    "pagination": {
        "limit": 10
    }
}

Response:

{
    "code": 200,
    "result": {
        "data": [
            {
                "url": "https://example.com/photography/trees",
                "title": "Trees",
                "text": "Lorem <strong>ipsum</strong> …",
                "images": [
                    { "url": "https://example.com/media/pages/photography/trees/1353177920-1579007734/cheesy-autumn.jpg" },
                    { "url": "https://example.com/media/pages/photography/trees/1940579124-1579007734/last-tree-standing.jpg" },
                    { "url": "https://example.com/media/pages/photography/trees/3506294441-1579007734/monster-trees-in-the-fog.jpg" }
                ]
            },
            {
                "url": "https://example.com/photography/sky",
                "title": "Sky",
                "text": "<h1>Dolor sit amet</h1> …",
                "images": [
                    { "url": "https://example.com/media/pages/photography/sky/183363500-1579007734/blood-moon.jpg" },
                    { "url": "https://example.com/media/pages/photography/sky/3904851178-1579007734/coconut-milkyway.jpg" }
                ]
            }
        ],
        "pagination": {
            "page": 1,
            "pages": 1,
            "offset": 0,
            "limit": 10,
            "total": 2
        }
    },
    "status": "ok"
}

Installation

Manual

Download and copy this repository to /site/plugins/kql of your Kirby installation.

Composer

composer require getkirby/kql

Documentation

API Endpoint

KQL adds a new query API endpoint to your Kirby API. (i.e. https://yoursite.com/api/query) The endpoint requires authentication: https://getkirby.com/docs/guide/api/authentication

Sending POST requests

You can use any HTTP request library in your language of choice to make regular POST requests to your /api/query endpoint. In this example, we are using axios and Javascript to get data from our Kirby installation.

const axios = require("axios")

const api = "https://yoursite.com/api/query";
const auth = {
  username: "apiuser",
  password: "strong-secret-api-password"
};

const response = await axios.post(api, {
  query: "page('notes').children",
  select: {
    title: true,
    text: "page.text.kirbytext",
    slug: true,
    date: "page.date.toDate('d.m.Y')"
  }
}, { auth });

console.log(response);

query

With the query, you can fetch data from anywhere in your Kirby site. You can query fields, pages, files, users, languages, roles and more.

Queries without selects

When you don't pass the select option, Kirby will try to come up with the most useful result set for you. This is great for simple queries.

Fetching the site title

const response = await axios.post(api, {
  query: "site.title",
}, { auth });

console.log(response.data);

Result:

{
  code: 200,
  result: "Kirby Starterkit",
  status: "ok"
}

Fetching a list of page ids

const response = await axios.post(api, {
  query: "site.children"
}, { auth });

console.log(response.data);

Result:

{
  code: 200,
  result: [
    "photography",
    "notes",
    "about",
    "error",
    "home"
  ],
  status: "ok"
}

Running field methods

Queries can even execute field methods.

const response = await axios.post(api, {
  query: "site.title.upper",
}, { auth });

console.log(response.data);

Result:

{
  code: 200,
  result: "KIRBY STARTERKIT",
  status: "ok"
}

select

KQL becomes really powerful by its flexible way to control the result set with the select option.

Select single properties and fields

To include a property or field in your results, list them as an array. Check out our reference for available properties for pages, users, files, etc: https://getkirby.com/docs/reference

const response = await axios.post(api, {
  query: "site.children",
  select: ["title", "url"]
}, { auth });

console.log(response.data);

Result:

{
  code: 200,
  result: {
    data: [
      {
        title: "Photography",
        url: "/photography"
      },
      {
        title: "Notes",
        url: "/notes"
      },
      {
        title: "About us",
        url: "/about"
      },
      {
        title: "Error",
        url: "/error"
      },
      {
        title: "Home",
        url: "/"
      }
    ],
    pagination: {
      page: 1,
      pages: 1,
      offset: 0,
      limit: 100,
      total: 5
    }
  },
  status: "ok"
}

You can also use the object notation and pass true for each key/property you want to include.

const response = await axios.post(api, {
  query: "site.children",
  select: {
    title: true,
    url: true
  }
}, { auth });

console.log(response.data);

Result:

{
  code: 200,
  result: {
    data: [
      {
        title: "Photography",
        url: "/photography"
      },
      {
        title: "Notes",
        url: "/notes"
      },
      {
        title: "About us",
        url: "/about"
      },
      {
        title: "Error",
        url: "/error"
      },
      {
        title: "Home",
        url: "/"
      }
    ],
    pagination: { ... }
  },
  status: "ok"
}

Using queries for properties and fields

Instead of passing true, you can also pass a string query to specify what you want to return for each key in your select object.

const response = await axios.post(api, {
  query: "site.children",
  select: {
    title: "page.title"
  }
}, { auth });

console.log(response.data);

Result:

{
  code: 200,
  result: {
    data: [
      {
        title: "Photography",
      },
      {
        title: "Notes",
      },
      ...
    ],
    pagination: { ... }
  },
  status: "ok"
}

Executing field methods

const response = await axios.post(api, {
  query: "site.children",
  select: {
    title: "page.title.upper"
  }
}, { auth });

console.log(response.data);

Result:

{
  code: 200,
  result: {
    data: [
      {
        title: "PHOTOGRAPHY",
      },
      {
        title: "NOTES",
      },
      ...
    ],
    pagination: { ... }
  },
  status: "ok"
}

Creating aliases

String queries are a perfect way to create aliases or return variations of the same field or property multiple times.

const response = await axios.post(api, {
  query: "page('notes').children",
  select: {
    title: "page.title",
    upperCaseTitle: "page.title.upper",
    lowerCaseTitle: "page.title.lower",
    guid: "page.id",
    date: "page.date.toDate('d.m.Y'),
    timestamp: "page.date.toTimestamp"
  }
}, { auth });

Result:

{
  code: 200,
  result: {
    data: [
      {
        title: "Explore the universe",
        upperCaseTitle: "EXPLORE THE UNIVERSE",
        lowerCaseTitle: "explore the universe",
        guid: "notes/explore-the-universe",
        date: "21.04.2018",
        timestamp: 1524316200
      },
      { ... },
      { ... },
      ...
    ],
    pagination: { ... }
  },
  status: "ok"
}

Subqueries

With such string queries you can of course also include nested data

const response = await axios.post(api, {
  query: "page('photography').children",
  select: {
    title: "page.title",
    images: "page.images"
  }
}, { auth });

Result:

{
  code: 200,
  result: {
    data: [
      {
        title: "Trees",
        images: [
          "photography/trees/cheesy-autumn.jpg",
          "photography/trees/last-tree-standing.jpg",
          "photography/trees/monster-trees-in-the-fog.jpg",
          "photography/trees/sharewood-forest.jpg",
          "photography/trees/stay-in-the-car.jpg"
        ]
      },
      { ... },
      { ... },
      ...
    ],
    pagination: { ... }
  },
  status: "ok"
}

Subqueries with selects

You can also pass an object with a query and a select option

const response = await axios.post(api, {
  query: "page('photography').children",
  select: {
    title: "page.title",
    images: {
      query: "page.images",
      select: {
        filename: true
      }
    }
  }
}, { auth });

Result:

{
  code: 200,
  result: {
    data: [
      {
        title: "Trees",
        images: {
          {
            filename: "cheesy-autumn.jpg"
          },
          {
            filename: "last-tree-standing.jpg"
          },
          {
            filename: "monster-trees-in-the-fog.jpg"
          },
          {
            filename: "sharewood-forest.jpg"
          },
          {
            filename: "stay-in-the-car.jpg"
          }
        }
      },
      { ... },
      { ... },
      ...
    ],
    pagination: { ... }
  },
  status: "ok"
}

Pagination

Whenever you query a collection (pages, files, users, roles, languages) you can limit the resultset and also paginate through entries. You've probably already seen the pagination object in the results above. It is included in all results for collections, even if you didn't specify any pagination settings.

limit

You can specify a custom limit with the limit option. The default limit for collections is 100 entries.

const response = await axios.post(api, {
  query: "page('notes').children",
  pagination: {
    limit: 5,  
  },
  select: {
    title: "page.title"
  }
}, { auth });

Result:

{
  code: 200,
  result: {
    data: [
      {
        title: "Across the ocean"
      },
      {
        title: "A night in the forest"
      },
      {
        title: "In the jungle of Sumatra"
      },
      {
        title: "Through the desert"
      },
      {
        title: "Himalaya and back"
      }
    ],
    pagination: {
      page: 1,
      pages: 2,
      offset: 0,
      limit: 5,
      total: 7
    }
  },
  status: "ok"
}

page

You can jump to any page in the resultset with the page option.

const response = await axios.post(api, {
  query: "page('notes').children",
  pagination: {
    page: 2,
    limit: 5
  },
  select: {
    title: "page.title"
  }
}, { auth });

Result:

{
  code: 200,
  result: {
    data: [
      {
        title: "Chasing waterfalls"
      },
      {
        title: "Exploring the universe"
      }
    ],
    pagination: {
      page: 2,
      pages: 2,
      offset: 5,
      limit: 5,
      total: 7
    }
  },
  status: "ok"
}

Pagination in subqueries

Pagination settings also work for subqueries.

const response = await axios.post(api, {
  query: "page('photography').children",
  select: {
    title: "page.title",
    images: {
      query: "page.images",
      pagination: {              
        page: 2,
        limit: 5
      }
      select: {
        filename: true
      }
    }
  }
}, { auth });

Multiple queries in a single call

With the power of selects and subqueries you can basically query the entire site in a single request

const response = await axios.post(api, {
  query: "site",
  select: {
    title: "site.title",
    url: "site.url",
    notes: {
      query: "page('notes').children.listed",
      select: {
        title: true,
        url: true,
        date: "page.date.toDate('d.m.Y')"
        text: "page.text.kirbytext"
      }
    },
    photography: {
      query: "page('photography').children.listed",
      select: {
        title: true,
        images: {
          query: "page.images",
          select: {
             url: true,
             alt: true,
             caption: "file.caption.kirbytext"
          }
        }
      }
    },
    about: {
      text: "page.text.kirbytext"
    }
  }
}, { auth });

No mutations

KQL only offers access to data in your site. It does not support any mutations. All destructive methods are blocked and cannot be accessed in queries.

Credits

Bastian Allgeier

License

http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php