Was this page helpful?

App parameters

Table of contents

What are parameters?

WARNING: Parameters can be read by anybody who belongs to a space where your app is installed. It's not secure to use parameters to inject access tokens with access level permitting data manipulation. Read-only tokens can be used but keep in mind their value is not hidden.

It's important to achieve separation of the code that forms your custom app and the configuration that is used by it. This way it can be shared, reused and reconfigured without any code changes.

Below are some examples of the use cases for parameters:

  • Default values.
  • Project, category or entity identifiers when loading data from external APIs.
  • Slack channel name to post messages to.
  • Content types to process (e.g. for publishing content trees).
  • Kinds of validation to apply.

There are the following types of configuration parameters that can be set up:

  • Installation parameters — Are set during installation in a space environment and which can be modified in subsequent configuration updates. Their values are available across all usages of the app in the environment.
  • Instance parameters — Are set when a space member with access to the content model assigns an app to a location. Values provided are available only in the specific location and content type where they were entered.

Parameter definition

Parameter definition is an object constructed as described in the table below.

Property Type and value Is required? Remarks
id String yes Can contain only letters, numbers and underscores
name String yes Human readable name of the parameter
description String no Further explanation of the purpose of the parameter
type String, one of Symbol, Enum, Number, Boolean yes Enum parameters hold a predefined list of Symbols
required Boolean no, defaults to false Whether the parameter value needs to be provided
default Should match type no Default value to use for the parameter. For Enums it has to be defined on the options list
options
  • list of allowed values: ["one", "two"]
  • can be a list of {"value": "Label"} pairs to provide labels for values
yes
  • applicable only to Enums
  • ["x", "y"] is equivalent to [{"x": "x"}, {"y": "y"}]
labels
  • for Enums: {"empty": "Choose a value"}
  • for Booleans: {"true": "sí", "false": "no"}
no Used for rendering a form. All labels are optional and have sensible defaults in English

Installation parameters

Installation parameters use

Installation parameters are set during the installation of an app in an environment and can be modified in subsequent configuration updates. Their values are available across all locations of the app in the environment.

Installation parameters are used to customize an app depending on the environment it is installed in. Installation parameters are commonly used to set default values, to reference content types, or to configure the interaction of the app with third party services.

Installation parameters can be read by every user with access to the space environment of the app. Any access tokens stored within them are therefore exposed to these users. We recommend not storing tokens that allow for data manipulation in installation parameters.

Installation parameter definition

Installation parameters are a free-form object, with a limit of 16kB, and don't have to be defined.

Instance parameters

Instance parameters use

Instance parameters can be used to access user-provided values inside of app code. They are configurable per field where the app is installed.

For instance parameters to be used in an app, the following prerequisites must be met:

  1. Developers must enable the use of instance parameters by configuring the AppDefinition to define what types of values are to be expected.
  2. Users configuring the app must provide the values of these parameters.

To give an example of how instance parameters work, let’s take a look at a list item app that is built to have the name of the list change based on what a user sets for that field. In the screenshot below, we are updating the content model for a specific content type. In this content type, the "List" field has an app called "List App" which is being used as the appearance. Instance parameters show up below the selected app and allow the user to input a custom value, in this case, the name of a list.

instance parameters UI

To learn more about using instance parameters, watch our video on how instance parameters can be set up for a simple app.

Instance parameter definition

Up to 8 instance parameters can be defined as a part the AppDefinition entity:

{
    "name": "My parametrized editor app",
    "src": "https://myeditor.contentful.com",
    "locations": [{"location": "entry-editor"}],
    "parameters": {
      "instance": [
        {
          "id": "helpText",
          "type": "Symbol",
          "name": "Help text",
          "description": "Help text for a user to help them understand the editor"
        },
        {
          "id": "theme",
          "type": "Enum",
          "name": "Theme",
          "options": [{"light": "Solarized light"}, {"dark": "Solarized dark"}],
          "default": "light",
          "required": true
        }
      ]
    }
}

You can define instance parameters for your app when editing the AppDefinition in the web app:

instance parameters UI

Set and read parameter values

Instance parameters are set in the Editor Interface entity. Installation parameters are provided as a top-level parameters property of the Extension entity:

{
  "parameters": {
    "devMode": true,
    "retries": 10
  }
}

Values, for both instance and installation parameters, can be read with the App SDK:

init((sdk) => {
  console.log(sdk.parameters.instance);
  console.log(sdk.parameters.installation);
});
Both instance and installation are guaranteed to be an empty object if values were not provided.