Contentful Hugo
This is a CLI tool that pulls data from Contentful CMS and turns it into Markdown or YAML files for use with a static site generator. It can be used with any static site generator that uses Markdown with YAML frontmatter, but it has some features that are specific to Hugo. It also includes a simple Express server that can can recieve webhooks from Contentful to retrigger get and delete commands (useful when running a preview environment).
Features
- Outputs to Markdown, YAML, or JSON files
- Singleton support
- Rich text field support
- Multilingual support
- Default shortcodes for rich text content
- Automatic asset field resolution
- Customizable linked entry resolution
- Content filters
- Content Preview API support
- Field name and field value overrides
- Custom field support
- Server mode to receive webhook triggers from Contentful
Table of Contents
Prerequisites
Install Node.js (Minimum supported version is Node v18)
Installation
with NPM
npm install contentful-hugo
with Yarn
yarn add contentful-hugo
Usage
Terminal Commands
Complete configuration then run the following command(s) in the terminal
When Installed Globally
## initialize the directory
contentful-hugo --init
## fetch content from contentful
contentful-hugo [flags]
When Installed Locally
npx contentful-hugo --init
npx contentful-hugo [flags]
Flags
flag | aliases | description |
---|
--init | | Initialize the directory. Generates a config file and default shortcodes for Contentful rich text fields |
--preview | -P | Runs in preview mode, which pulls both published and unpublished entries from Contentful |
--wait | -W | Wait for the specified number of milliseconds before pulling data from Contentful. |
--config | -C | Specify the path to a config file. |
--server | -S | Run in server mode to receive webhooks from Contentful |
--port | | Specify port for server mode (Default 1414) |
--clean | | Delete any directories specified in singleTypes and repeatableTypes |
--help | | Show help |
--version | | Show version number |
Multiple Flags Example
contentful-hugo --wait=2000 --preview --config="my_custom_config.js"
# or
contentful-hugo --wait 2000 --preview --config my_custom_config.js
Example Package.json
{
"name": "my-hugo-project",
"scripts": {
"dev": "contentful-hugo --preview && hugo server",
"build": "contentful-hugo && hugo --minify"
}
}
In this example when you run npm run dev
it will first use contentful-hugo to pull Contentful data then start hugo server. In the same way when you do the command npm run build
it will first use contentful-hugo to pull Contentful data then run hugo --minify
to build a minified version of your hugo site.
Error Messages
Trying to use this package before completing configuration will return an error in the console
Error: There is an error in your config file, or it does't exits.
Check your config for errors or run "contentful-hugo --init" to create a config file.
Configuration
Environment Variables
By default this library will look for the following environment variables. You can also override these values with the config file. (See config)
- CONTENTFUL_SPACE
- CONTENTFUL_TOKEN
- CONTENTFUL_PREVIEW_TOKEN
.env File:
To declare these environment variables create a .env
file in the root directory of your project.
CONTENTFUL_SPACE = '<space-id>'
CONTENTFUL_TOKEN = '<content-accessToken>'
CONTENTFUL_PREVIEW_TOKEN = '<preview-accessToken>'
You can also declare the environment variables in the command line
Powershell:
$env:CONTENTFUL_SPACE="<contentful_space_id>"
$env:CONTENTFUL_TOKEN="<contentful_acessToken>"
$env:CONTENTFUL_PREVIEW_TOKEN="<contentful_preview_accessToken>"
Bash:
export CONTENTFUL_SPACE="<contentful_space_id>"
export CONTENTFUL_TOKEN="<contentful_accessToken>"
export CONTENTFUL_PREVIEW_TOKEN="<contentful_preview_accessToken>"
Config File
Before getting started, you will need to create a config file in the root of your repository. Contentful-hugo by default will search for the following files as a config.
contentful-hugo.config.ts
contentful-hugo.config.js
contentful-hugo.config.yaml
contentful-hugo.yaml
contentful-settings.yaml
You can also specify a custom config file using the --config
flag. (Javascript or YAML config files are the only currently accepted filetypes)
Example Typescript Config
import { defineConfig } from 'contentful-hugo';
export default defineConfig({
locales: ['en-US', 'fr-FR'],
contentful: {
space: 'space-id',
token: 'content-deliver-token',
previewToken: 'content-preview-token',
environment: 'master',
},
singleTypes: [
{
id: 'homepage',
directory: 'content',
fileName: '_index',
},
{
id: 'siteSettings',
directory: 'data',
fileName: 'settings',
fileExtension: 'yaml',
},
],
repeatableTypes: [
{
id: 'posts',
directory: 'content/posts',
mainContent: 'content',
resolveEntries: {
categories: 'fields.slug',
author: 'fields.name',
relatedPosts: 'sys.id',
},
},
{
id: 'seoFields',
isHeadless: true,
directory: 'content/seo-fields',
customFields: {
myCustomField: 'myCustomFieldVal',
myOtherCustomField: (entry) => {
return entry.fields.whatever;
},
},
},
{
id: 'reviews',
directory: 'content/reviews',
mainContent: 'reviewBody',
},
{
id: 'category',
directory: 'content/categories',
isTaxonomy: true,
},
],
staticContent: [
{
inputDir: 'static_content',
outputDir: 'content',
},
],
});
Using a Javascript Config
A javascript config is pretty much the same as a typescript config.
import { defineConfig } from 'contentful-hugo';
export default defineConfig({
});
CommonJS syntax should also work (I don't actually test against this maybe it works maybe it doesn't)
const { defineConfig } = require('contentful-hugo');
module.exports = defineConfig({
});
Example YAML Config
locales:
- en-US
- fr-FR
contentful:
space: 'space-id'
token: 'content-deliver-token'
previewToken: 'content-preview-token'
environment: 'master'
singleTypes:
- id: homepage
directory: content
fileName: _index
- id: siteSettings
directory: data
fileName: settings
fileExtension: yaml
repeatableTypes:
- id: posts
directory: content/posts
fileExtension: md
mainContent: content
resolveEntries:
categories: fields.slug
author: fields.name
relatedPosts: sys.id
- id: seoFields
isHeadless: true
directory: content/seo-fields
customFields:
myCustomFields: 'myCustomFieldValue'
- id: reviews
directory: content/reviews
mainContent: reviewBody
- id: staff
isHeadless: true
directory: content/staff
- id: category
directory: content/categories
isTaxonomy: true
Config Fields
Contentful Options
field | required | description |
---|
space | optional | Contentful Space ID (Defaults to CONTENTFUL_SPACE environment variable if not set) |
token | optional | Content delivery token (Defaults to CONTENTFUL_TOKEN environment variable if not set) |
previewToken | optional | Content preview token (Defaults to CONTENTFUL_PREVIEW_TOKEN environment variable if not set) |
environment | optional | Contentful environment ID (Defaults to "master" if not set) |
Single Type Options
field | required | description |
---|
id | required | Contentful content type ID |
directory | required | Directory where you want the file(s) to be generated |
fileName | required | Name of the file generated |
fileExtension | optional | Can be "md", "yml", "yaml", or "json" (defaults to "md") |
mainContent | optional | Field ID for field you want to be the main Markdown content. (Can be a markdown, richtext, or string field) |
type | optional | Manually set value for "type" field in the frontmatter (see hugo docs) |
resolveEntries | optional | Resolve the specified reference fields and/or asset fields to one of it's properties parameter |
overrides | optional | Do custom overrides for field values or field names |
filters | optional | Accepts an object of Contentful search parameters to filter results. See Contentful docs |
ignoreLocales | optional | Ignore localization settings and only pull from the default locale (defaults to false) |
customFields | optional | Accepts an object of fields and values. The values can be a standard static value or a function that accepts the Contentful entry as a parameter and returns a value |
Repeatable Type Options
field | required | description |
---|
id | required | Contentful content type ID |
directory | required | Directory where you want the files to be generated |
fileName | optional | Entry property that will dicatate the filename. (By default this will be sys.id ) |
fileExtension | optional | Can be "md", "yml", "yaml", or "json" (defaults to "md") |
isHeadless | optional | Turns all entries in a content type into headless leaf bundles (see hugo docs). Cannot be set to true when isTaxonomy is set to true. |
isTaxonomy (Experimental) | optional | Organize entries in file structure allowing for custom taxonomy metadata (see hugo docs). Cannot be set to true when isHeadless is set to true. |
mainContent | optional | Field ID for field you want to be the main markdown content. (Can be a markdown, richtext, or string field) |
type | optional | Manually set value for "type" field in the frontmatter (see hugo docs) |
resolveEntries | optional | Resolve the specified reference fields and/or asset fields to one of it's properties |
overrides | optional | Do custom overrides for field values or field names |
filters | optional | Accepts an object of Contentful search parameters to filter results. See Contentful docs |
ignoreLocales | optional | Ignore localization settings and only pull from the default locale (defaults to false) |
customFields | optional | Accepts an object of fields and values. The values can be a standard static value or a function that accepts the Contentful entry as a parameter and returns a value |
Localization Options
The config also has a locales
field that allows you to specify what locales you want to pull from. This field can take an array of strings, an array of objects, or a combination.
By default locale specific file extensions will be used for multiple translations.
const { defineConfig } = require('contentful-hugo');
module.exports = defineConfig({
locales: ['en-US', 'fr-FR'];
})
module.exports = defineConfig({
locales: [
{
code: 'en-US',
mapTo: 'en'
},
{
code: 'fr-FR',
mapTo: 'fr'
}
]
})
module.exports = defineConfig({
locales: [
'en-US',
{
code: 'fr-FR',
mapTo: 'fr'
}
]
})
After configuring locales in Contentful Hugo you will need to update your Hugo config to account for these locales. Consult the Hugo docs for more details.
[languages]
[languages.en-us]
[languages.fr-fr]
Locale Specific Directories
There are sometimes cases where you will want to place content in a directory based on it's locale rather than using a file extension based translation. In order to do this you simple include [locale]
inside your directory file path.
When using locale specific directories the locale specific file extensions (i.e. en.md
or fr.md
) get dropped
const { defineConfig } = require('contentful-hugo');
module.exports = defineConfig({
locales: ['en', 'fr']
singleTypes: [
{
id: 'settings',
fileName: 'settings',
fileExtension: 'yaml',
directory: 'data/[locale]'
}
]
repeatableTypes: [
{
id: 'post',
directory: 'content/[locale]/post',
},
],
});
Static Content Options
The recommended setup for Contentful Hugo is to have your content (usually ./content
) and data (usually ./data
) directories ignored in version control. This is because contentful-hugo will generate these directories at build time. However, this creates trouble for instances where you have pages that are not managed in Contentful and aren't generated at build time by another source.
To deal with this problem Contentful-Hugo has a staticContent
parameter. This paramter accepts an input directory (inputDir
) that can be commited to git, and an output directory (outputDir
) which would be your standard content or data directory. All items in the inputDir will get copied into the outputDir at build time and will retain their folder structure.abs
For example in the config below ./static_content/posts/my-post.md
will get copied to ./content/posts/my-post.md
, and ./static_data/global-settings.yaml
will be copied to ./data/global-settings.yaml
.
const { defineConfig } = require('contentful-hugo');
module.exports = defineConfig({
staticContent: [
{
inputDir: 'static_content',
outputDir: 'content',
},
{
inputDir: 'static_data',
outputDir: 'data',
},
],
});
Contentful-Hugo will also watch for file changes in the inputDir's while running in server mode.
Advanced Config Examples
Dynmically Changing Tokens
Here is an example of dynamically change the token
, previewToken
, and environment
options depending on any arbitrary condition.
const { defineConfig } = require('contentful-hugo');
require('dotenv').config();
const myMasterToken = process.env.CONTENTFUL_MASTER_TOKEN;
const myMasterPreviewToken = process.env.CONTENTFUL_MASTER_PREVIEW_TOKEN;
const myStagingToken = process.env.CONTENTFUL_STAGING_TOKEN;
const myStagingPreviewToken = process.env.CONTENTFUL_STAGING_PREVIEW_TOKEN;
const isStaging = true || false;
module.exports = defineConfig({
contentful: {
space: 'my-space-id',
token: isStaging ? myStagingToken : myMasterToken,
preview: isStaging ? myStagingPreviewToken : myMasterPreviewToken,
environment: isStaging ? 'staging' : 'master',
},
});
Overriding Fields and Field Values
const { defineConfig } = require('contentful-hugo');
module.exports = defineConfig({
repeatableTypes: [
{
id: "trips",
directory: "content/trips"
overrides: {
url: {
fieldName: "slug"
}
distanceInKilometers: {
fieldName: "distanceInMiles",valueTransformer: (val) => {
if(typeof val === 'number') {
return val * 0.621371
}
return 0
}
}
}
}
]
})
module.exports = defineConfig({
repeatableTypes: [
{
id: "trips",
directory: "content/trips"
overrides: [
{
field: "url",
options: {
fieldName: "slug"
}
},
{
field: "distanceInKilometers",
options: {
fieldName: "distanceInMiles",
valueTransformer: (val) => {
if(typeof val === 'number') {
return val * 0.621371
}
return 0
}
}
}]
}
]
})
Config File Autocomplete
For JS config files you can use the defineConfig
helper or you can import the ContentfulHugoConfig
type.
const { defineConfig } = require('contentful-hugo');
module.exports = defineConfig({
});
module.exports = {
};
Gitignore Setup
Example .gitignore
setup
.env
node_modules
public
resources
.contentful-hugo
content
data
Expected Output
Files will be generated in the directory specified in the config file. Front matter will be in YAML format. Files of single types will be named after fileName specified in the config file. Files of repeatable types will be named after their entry ID in Contenful, which makes it easy to link files together.
Default Metadata Fields and Date Field
The following fields will always appear in your frontmatter:
date:
sys:
id:
updatedAt:
createdAt:
revision:
space:
contentType:
Asset Information
Assets like images and videos come with some extra information that makes it easy to implement things like alt text or layouts that rely on knowing the image dimensions. The fields are as follows:
assetFieldName:
assetType:
url:
title:
description:
width:
height:
If you're using Hugo you can access the information like below:
<img
src="{{ .Params.assetFieldName.url }}"
width="{{ .Params.assetFieldName.width }}"
/>
For images you can append parameters to the asset url in order to make use of Contentful's images api
<img
src="{{ .Params.assetFieldname.url }}?w=200&h=200&fit=fill"
width="200"
height="200"
/>
This same information will also appear in asset arrays like a gallery:
myGallery:
- assetType: 'image/jpg'
url: '//link-to-image.jpg'
title: 'Image 1'
description: 'Image 1 Description'
width: 500
height: 500
- assetType: 'image/jpg'
url: '//link-to-image-2.jpg'
title: 'Image 2'
description: 'Image 2 Description'
width: 1920
height: 1080
Entries
Linked entries will include fields for it's id and it's content type id.
linkedEntry:
id: <contentful-entry-id>
typeId: <content-type-ID>
relatedArticles:
- id: '41UFfIhszbS1kh95bomMj7'
typeId: 'articles'
- id: '85UFfIhsacS1kh71bpqMj7'
typeId: 'articles'
Accessing Linked Entry Data
All files are named after their entry id in Contentful making it easy to retrieve it using .Site.GetPage
in Hugo
{{ with .Site.GetPage "<path-to-file>/<entry-id>" }}
{{ .Title }}
{{ end }}
{{ with site.GetPage "<path-to-file>/<entry-id>" }}
{{ .Title }}
{{ end }}
Simple example
{{ with .Params.myEntryField }}
{{ $pagePage := print "path/to/entryDir/" .id }}
{{ with site.GetPage $pagePath }}
{{ .Title }}
{{ .Params.someOtherField }}
{{ end }}
{{ end }}
Relevant Documentation:
Rich Text As Main Content
A rich text field that is set as the "mainContent" for a content type will be rendered as markdown for Hugo.
Dynamic content such as embedded-entry-blocks
are rendered as shortcodes with parameters included that can be used to fetch the necessary data.
<!-- example embedded entry -->
<!-- you can use the id, contentType, and parentContentType parameters to fetch the desired data -->
{{< contentful-hugo/embedded-entry id="nTLo2ffSJJp5QrnrO5IU9" contentType="gallery" parentContentType="post" >}}
Before fetching rich text data make sure you have run contentful-hugo --init
so that you will have all the rich text shortcodes. Once you have these shortcodes you can extend and modify them to suit your needs.
The list of rich text short codes includes:
- contentful-hugo/asset-hyperlink.html
- contentful-hugo/embedded-asset.html
- contentful-hugo/embedded-entry.html
- contentful-hugo/entry-hyperlink.html
- contentful-hugo/inline-entry.html
By default the richtext short codes will show a notification for an unconfigured item.
You can customize them by navigating to layouts/shortcodes/contentful-hugo/{shortcode-name}.html
Rich Text In FrontMatter
A Rich text field will produce nested arrays mirroring the JSON structure that they have in the API. Each node will need to be looped through and produce HTML depending on the nodeType field.
richTextField:
- nodeType: 'paragraph'
data: {}
content:
- data: {}
marks: []
value: 'This is a simple paragraph.'
nodeType: 'text'
- nodeType: 'paragraph'
data: {}
content:
- data: {}
marks: []
value: 'This is a paragraph with '
nodeType: 'text'
- data: {}
marks:
- type: 'italic'
value: 'italicized text.'
nodeType: 'text'
- nodeType: 'embedded-asset-block'
data:
assetType: 'image/jpeg'
url: '//images.ctfassets.net/some-image-url.jpg'
title: 'Image title will appear here'
description: 'Image description will appear here'
width: 1920
height: 1080
content: []
In addition a plaintext version of the field will be generated using the field ID appended with "_plaintext". This allows you to quickly fetch the text by itself without any of the other data. A simple use case would be using the plaintext output to automatically generate a meta description for a webpage.
richTextField_plaintext: 'This is a simple paragraph. This is a paragraph with italicized text.'
The Resolve Entries Parameter
The resolve entries option let's you specify a property from a referenced entry or asset to resolve that field value to. For example say you have a category
content type that is referenced in posts
. Normally contentful-hugo will give the following result
category:
id: some-entry-id
contentType: category
While this makes it easy to find the category, this format does not allow you to use Hugo's built in taxonomy features. With the resolveEntries
parameter you can remedy this.
module.exports = defineConfig({
repeatableTypes: [
id: 'posts',
directory: 'content/posts',
resolveEntries: {
category: 'fields.slug'
}
resolveEntries: [
{
field: 'category',
resolveTo: 'fields.slug',
},
],
]
})
Now the category field will only display the slug as the value.
category: my-category-slug
The resolve entries feature works with both reference fields and asset fields, as well as multiple reference and multiple asset fields.
The Overrides Parameter
Overrides can be used to modify field names and field values.
Here's a simple example of changing a field name from "url" to "videoUrl"
repeatableTypes: [
{
id: 'youtubeVideo',
directory: 'content/_youtubeVideo',
isHeadless: true,
overrides: {
url: {
fieldName: 'videoUrl'
}
}
overrides: [
{
field: 'url',
options: {
fieldName: 'videoUrl',
},
},
],
},
];
overrides
also has a valueTransformer
options that allows you to manipulate the field data that will appear in frontmatter. valueTransformer
takes a method that has the field value as a parameter and then returns the final result that will appear in the frontmatter. (Be aware that since valueTransformer
must be a method this option will only work in javascript config files)
Here's an example where we change the field name from "url" to "videoId" and then we use the valueTransformer
to extract the video id from the url and then place it in the frontmatter.
repeatableTypes: [
{
id: 'youtubeVideo',
directory: 'content/_youtubeVideo',
isHeadless: true,
overrides: {
url: {
fieldName: 'videoId',
valueTransformer: (value) => {
if (!value) {
return null;
}
const url = new URL(value);
return url.searchParams.get('v');
}
}
}
overrides: [
{
field: 'url',
options: {
fieldName: 'videoId',
valueTransformer: (value) => {
},
},
},
],
},
];
When using the valueTransformer
option on fields that contain arrays make sure to loop through the value when manipulating it.
repeatabledTypes: [
{
id: 'post',
directory: 'content/posts',
overrides: {
authors: {
valueTransformer: (authorRefs) => {
const authors = [];
for (const ref of authorRefs) {
authors.push({
name: ref.fields.name,
photo: ref.fields.photo.fields.file.url,
bio: ref.fields.bio,
});
}
return authors;
},
},
},
},
];
Now the authors
field will look like this:
authors:
- name: Some Name
photo: //images.cfassets.net/path-to-photo.jpg
bio: some bio text
- name: Some other name
photo: //images.cfassets.net/path-to-photo.jpg
bio: some other bio text
As you can see this can be used to produce similar results to the resolveEntries
parameter, but resolveEntries
can only return one property while with overrides you can do whatever you want with the field values.
The Filters Parameter
You can use to filters
option to enter search parameters allowing you to filter entries based on some of their properties. For more info on Contentful search parameters visit their docs.
Be aware that the following search parameters will be ignored content_type
, skip
, order
, limit
Examples:
module.exports = defineConfig({
singleTypes: [
{
id: 'homepage',
directory: 'content',
fileName: '_index',
filters: {
'sys.id': 'my-homepace-id'
}
}
]
repeatableTypes: [
{
id: 'events',
directory: 'content/events',
filters: {
'fields.startDate[gte]': '2020-01-01T00:00:00Z',
},
},
{
id: 'posts',
directory: 'content/posts',
filters: {
'fields.author': 'John Doe',
'fields.tags': 'flowers'
},
},
];
})
Adding Custom Fields To Frontmatter
You can use the customFields
parameter to add additional fields to your entries. The config for custom fields can be a static value or a method that accepts a Contentful entry as a parameter and returns a value.
Examples
Let's say we have an author content type with the following fields:
Here's an example config:
module.exports = defineConfig({
repeatableTypes: [
{
id: 'author',
directory: 'content/authors',
customFields: {
myCustomField: 'myCustomFieldValue',
fullName: (entry) => {
const { firstName, lastName } = entry.fields;
return `${firstName} ${lastName}`;
},
},
},
],
});
Here's what that config will result in
---
firstName: 'John'
lastName: 'Doe'
slug: 'john-doe'
myCustomField: 'myCustomFieldValue'
fullName: 'John Doe'
---
You could also use this for Hugo specific fields like Build Options
{
customFields: {
_build: {
render: 'alway',
list: 'never',
publishResources: true
}
}
}
{
customFields: {
_build: {
render: 'never',
list: 'always',
publishResources: true
}
}
}
Guides
Known Issues
These are some known issues.
- Date & Time Field w/o Timezone: Date fields that include time but do not have a specified timezone will have a timezone set based on whatever machine the script is run on. So using a date field in contentful with this setting could lead to unexpected results when formatting dates. Date fields that don't include time (ex: YYYY-MM-DD) are not effected by this.
- Fetching Data Before Contentful CDN Updates: Sometimes when triggering a build from a webhook, it won't always get the latest data. This is because it sometimes takes a couple seconds for the latest data to get distrubuted across Contentful's CDN. If you run into this issue add teh the
--wait
flag to your script. Here's an example where we wait an additional 6 seconds contentful-hugo --wait=6000
. - Hugo --server Rendering Issues: If you have fields that where multiple different files are referenced such as a rich text field that references other entries Hugo's default server mode may not rerender everything. To fix this run
hugo server --disableFastRender