Making config entities available via APIsfor Drupal 8 , 9 , 10 , and 11

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Introduction

As we progress with building our headless Drupal applications, the need to expose configuration entities through APIs becomes evident. Unlike content entities, configuration entities describe site settings and behavior and include elements like content types, views, or taxonomy vocabularies. By making these entities accessible through APIs, you provide your applications with the necessary configuration data to customize behavior based on external interactions.

Understanding Config Entities

Configuration entities in Drupal are pieces of configuration expressed as structured data. They define and manage parts of your site that need to be mutable but consistent across environments. Examples include site settings, content type definitions, views, and display modes.

The Importance of Exposing Config Entities via APIs

By making config entities available through APIs, you achieve several benefits:

  • Unified Environment Management: Centralize control over configurations across environments.
  • Dynamic Adjustments: Enable frontend applications to adapt their behaviors according to backend configurations.
  • Consistent Deployments: Maintain consistency in behavior and settings between development, staging, and production environments.

Steps to Expose Config Entities through APIs

  1. Identify Relevant Config Entities:

    Determine which configuration entities are essential for your external applications. Common examples include views, image styles, and field storage configurations.

  2. Leverage API Modules:

    Install and enable modules that facilitate configuration entity exposure. The RESTful Web Services module is often utilized for this purpose. 

    # Enable necessary modules
drush en rest
drush en restui // Optional for UI configuration
  3. Configure REST Endpoints:

    Set up and customize REST endpoints to serve configuration entities. 

    1. Navigate to Configuration > Web services > REST.
2. Enable endpoints for configuration entities like "configuration view" and "image style".
3. Define permissions, serialization formats, and authentication methods as needed.
  4. Test API Accessibility:

    Utilize tools like Postman to test your API endpoints, ensuring they are correctly serving the desired configuration entities.

Example: Exposing Views Configuration via REST API

Consider exposing a view configuration that displays a list of published blog posts: 

1. Identify the view's configuration entity you want to expose.
2. Go to Configuration > Web services > REST and enable the endpoint for "views display".
3. Set permissions for appropriate roles, such as "Authenticated" or "Anonymous", ensuring security.
4. Test using Postman or similar tools with requests to http://yoursite.com/entity/views_display endpoint.

This setup allows your frontend applications to dynamically adjust their data representations based on backend view changes.

Conclusion

Making configuration entities available via APIs provides the backbone for flexible and adaptable frontend applications. By managing and exposing configurations, you enhance the capability of your headless Drupal applications to respond to shifts in site logic and settings, maintaining strong alignment between configuration and content data.

Further Learning

With config entities accessible through APIs, you are on your way to developing a more robust headless setup. Continue honing your skills by engaging with more advanced topics, such as integrating these configurations with complex frontend frameworks.