dotCMS Client SDK

The @dotcms/client is a powerful JavaScript/TypeScript SDK designed to simplify the integration of dotCMS content into your applications. Whether building dynamic websites or content-driven apps, this SDK offers an intuitive API for seamless and type-safe content retrieval, enabling you to create engaging experiences effortlessly by accessing and displaying content from dotCMS.

When to Use It:

• Building headless frontends that need dotCMS content
• Building content-driven apps that need to access dotCMS content
• Developing multi-language or personalized experiences
• Implementing dynamic navigation and page structures

Key Benefits:

• Simplified Development: Write less code with intuitive methods and builders
• Type Safety: Built-in TypeScript definitions prevent runtime errors
• Universal Compatibility: Works in both browser and Node.js environments
• Security First: Handles authentication and requests securely
• Developer Experience: Rich autocompletion and documentation

📋 Migration Guides:

• From Alpha Version? If you're upgrading from the alpha version of @dotcms/client, please see our Migration Guide for step-by-step instructions.
• From v1.2.x to v1.3.0? See the Changelog section below for new AI Search API features.
• From v1.0.x to v1.1.1? See the Changelog section below for new features and improvements.

Table of Contents

• Getting Started
  • Prerequisites & Setup
  • Installation
  • Your First API Call
  • Example Projects
• How-to Guides
  • How to Fetch Complete Pages
  • How to Query Content Collections
    • Including System Host Content
  • How to Run Raw Lucene Content Queries
  • How to Use AI-Powered Search
  • How to Work with GraphQL
  • How to Use with TypeScript
  • How to Enable Page Editing
• API Reference
  • Client Initialization
  • HTTP Client Configuration
  • page.get() Method
  • content.getCollection() Method
  • content.query() Method
  • ai.search() Method
  • navigation.get() Method
  • Error Handling
• Concepts & Architecture
  • Key Concepts
  • Choosing the Right Method
  • Architecture Overview
• Support
• Contributing
• Licensing
• Changelog
  • v1.3.0
  • v1.1.1

Getting Started

Prerequisites & Setup

Get a dotCMS Environment

Which SDK Version Should I Use?

dotCMS SDKs are published in lockstep with dotCMS itself: every @dotcms/* package ships at the exact same version number as the dotCMS release it was built for (e.g. dotCMS 26.7.14-1 → @dotcms/[email protected], @dotcms/[email protected], and so on).

Simple rule of thumb: use the SDK version that matches your dotCMS instance's version.

You don't have to upgrade the SDK every time dotCMS releases a new version (or vice versa). Most releases don't change anything the SDKs rely on, so an older SDK usually keeps working fine against a newer dotCMS instance. Occasionally, though, a release does include a real breaking change — and if your SDK is older than that point, it will stop working correctly.

You don't need to track this yourself: your dotCMS instance always knows the oldest SDK version it still supports, and the SDK checks itself against it automatically. If you're using an SDK that's too old, you'll see a clear warning in your console telling you to upgrade.

Recommendation: pin your SDKs to the same version as your dotCMS instance, and only bump them when you upgrade dotCMS — or when the console tells you to.

On an LTS release? LTS releases don't currently get their own matching SDK version. Until that's addressed, use the SDK version published for the closest regular release at or before your LTS version.

Want more background on how dotCMS releases and support windows work? See Release & Support Lifecycle.

Environment Setup

For Production Use:

• ☁️ Cloud hosting options - managed solutions with SLA
• 🛠️ Self-hosted options - deploy on your infrastructure

For Testing & Development:

• 🧑🏻‍💻 dotCMS demo site - perfect for trying out the SDK
• 📘 Learn how to use the demo site
• 📝 Read-only access, ideal for building proof-of-concepts

For Local Development:

• 🐳 Docker setup guide
• 💻 Local installation guide

Create a dotCMS API Key

[!TIP] Make sure your API Token has read-only permissions for Pages, Folders, Assets, and Content. Using a key with minimal permissions follows security best practices.

This integration requires an API Key with read-only permissions for security best practices:

1. Go to the dotCMS admin panel.
2. Click on System > Users.
3. Select the user you want to create the API Key for.
4. Go to API Access Key and generate a new key.

For detailed instructions, please refer to the dotCMS API Documentation - Read-only token.

Installation

Install the SDK and required dependencies:

npm install @dotcms/client@latest @dotcms/types@latest

[!TIP] If you are working with pure JavaScript, you can avoid installing the @dotcms/types package.

Your First API Call

Here's a basic setup of the dotCMS Client SDK to help you get started:

import { createDotCMSClient } from '@dotcms/client';

// Create a client instance
const client = createDotCMSClient({
    dotcmsUrl: 'https://your-dotcms-instance.com',
    authToken: 'your-auth-token',
    siteId: 'your-site-id' // Optional site identifier
});

// Start using the client!
const { pageAsset } = await client.page.get('/about-us');
console.log(pageAsset.page.title);

Example Projects

While there isn't a dedicated example project specifically for the client SDK, you can see it in action within these full-stack examples:

• Next.js Example - Modern React-based SSR implementation
• Angular Example - Enterprise Angular implementation
• Astro Example - Astro implementation

These examples demonstrate how to use the client SDK as part of a complete web application.

How-to Guides

How to Fetch Complete Pages

The client.page.get() method is your primary tool for retrieving full page content. Here's how to use it effectively:

Basic Page Fetching

// Fetch a page with its layout and content
const { pageAsset } = await client.page.get('/about-us');
console.log(pageAsset.page.title);

Customizing Page Requests

// Fetch with specific language and persona
const { pageAsset } = await client.page.get('/about-us', {
    languageId: '2',
    fireRules: true,
    personaId: '1234'
});

Fetching Related Content

// Pull in additional content with GraphQL
const { pageAsset, content } = await client.page.get('/about-us', {
    graphql: {
        content: {
            blogPosts: `
                BlogCollection(limit: 3) {
                    title
                    urlTitle
                }
            `,
            navigation: `
                DotNavigation(uri: "/", depth: 2) {
                    href
                    title
                }
            `
        }
    }
});

How to Query Content Collections

The client.content.getCollection() method uses a fluent builder pattern for querying content:

Basic Collection Queries

// Fetch first 10 blog posts
const blogs = await client.content.getCollection('Blog').limit(10).page(1);

Filtering and Sorting

// Filter by title and sort by date
const filtered = await client.content
    .getCollection('Blog')
    .query((qb) => qb.field('title').equals('dotCMS*'))
    .limit(5)
    .sortBy([{ field: 'publishDate', direction: 'desc' }]);

Complex Queries

// Multiple filters with operators
const products = await client.content
    .getCollection('Product')
    .query((qb) => qb
        .field('category').equals('electronics')
        .and()
        .field('price').raw(':[100 TO 500]')
        .not()
        .field('discontinued').equals('true')
    )
    .limit(10);

Including System Host Content

By default, getCollection() scopes queries to the configured siteId. Call .includeSystemHost() to also return content that belongs to the dotCMS System Host — shared content available across all sites.

// Return content from both the configured site AND the System Host
const blogs = await client.content
    .getCollection('Blog')
    .includeSystemHost()
    .limit(10);

Under the hood, all positive +conhost: constraints in the assembled query are collected and grouped into a single +(conhost:<siteId> conhost:SYSTEM_HOST) OR group, so dotCMS returns content from any of the matched hosts.

// Multiple sites + System Host (multisite scenario)
const blogs = await client.content
    .getCollection('Blog')
    .query('+conhost:site-a')
    .includeSystemHost()
    .limit(10);
// Resulting conhost constraint: +(conhost:site-a conhost:<configured-siteId> conhost:SYSTEM_HOST)

[!NOTE] Negative conhost exclusions (-conhost:excluded-site) in raw queries are preserved as-is and are not affected by includeSystemHost().

How to Run Raw Lucene Content Queries

Use client.content.query() when you want to execute a raw Lucene query string (without the query-builder DSL), and you want full control over constraints like contentType, live, languageId, conhost, etc.

[!NOTE] content.query() does not prefix fields with contentType. (unlike getCollection()), and it does not inject system constraints into your query string.

Basic Raw Query

const response = await client.content
    .query('+contentType:Blog +title:"Hello World"')
    .limit(10)
    .page(1);

Setting Language (request body)

const response = await client.content
    .query('+contentType:Blog +title:"Hello World"')
    .language(1) // sets languageId in the request body (does not alter the Lucene string)
    .limit(10);

How to Use AI-Powered Search

[!WARNING] Experimental Feature: The AI API is currently experimental and may undergo breaking changes in future releases. Use with caution in production environments.

The client.ai.search() method enables semantic search using AI embeddings to find content based on meaning rather than exact keyword matches.

Prerequisites

Before using AI-powered search, ensure your dotCMS instance is properly configured:

[!IMPORTANT] Required Setup:

1. dotAI must be activated in your dotCMS instance
2. OpenAI API Key must be configured in dotCMS
3. PostgreSQL 15+ with pgvector extension must be installed
4. Content indexes must be created and configured in dotAI

For detailed setup instructions, see the dotCMS dotAI documentation.

Basic AI Search

// Search for content semantically related to your query
const response = await client.ai.search(
    'articles about machine learning',
    'content_index'
);
console.log(response.results);

Customizing Search Parameters

// Fine-tune search with query parameters
const response = await client.ai.search(
    'artificial intelligence tutorials',
    'content_index',
    {
        query: {
            limit: 20,
            offset: 0,
            contentType: 'BlogPost',
            languageId: '1'
        }
    }
);

Adjusting AI Configuration

import { DISTANCE_FUNCTIONS } from '@dotcms/types';

// Customize AI search behavior with threshold and distance function
const response = await client.ai.search(
    'deep learning concepts',
    'content_index',
    {
        config: {
            threshold: 0.75,              // Higher threshold = more relevant results
            distanceFunction: DISTANCE_FUNCTIONS.cosine, // Distance calculation method
            responseLength: 2048           // Maximum response length
        }
    }
);

Complete Example with All Options

// Combine query and AI parameters for precise control
const response = await client.ai.search(
    'best practices for content management',
    'articles_index',
    {
        query: {
            limit: 10,
            offset: 0,
            contentType: 'Article',
            languageId: '1',
            siteId: 'my-site'
        },
        config: {
            threshold: 0.8,
            distanceFunction: DISTANCE_FUNCTIONS.innerProduct,
            responseLength: 1024
        }
    }
);

// Access results with match scores
response.results.forEach(result => {
    console.log(result.title);
    console.log('Matches:', result.matches); // Distance and extracted text
});

Understanding Distance Functions

The SDK supports multiple distance functions for vector similarity:

import { DISTANCE_FUNCTIONS } from '@dotcms/types';

// Available distance functions:
DISTANCE_FUNCTIONS.cosine        // '<=>' - Cosine similarity (default)
DISTANCE_FUNCTIONS.innerProduct  // '<#>' - Inner product similarity
DISTANCE_FUNCTIONS.L2            // '<->' - Euclidean distance
DISTANCE_FUNCTIONS.L1            // '<+>' - Manhattan distance
DISTANCE_FUNCTIONS.hamming       // '<~>' - Hamming distance
DISTANCE_FUNCTIONS.jaccard       // '<%>' - Jaccard similarity

How to Use with TypeScript

The SDK is built with TypeScript and provides comprehensive type definitions through the @dotcms/types package for enhanced developer experience and type safety.

Basic Type Usage

import { createDotCMSClient } from '@dotcms/client';
import type {
    DotCMSPageAsset,
    DotCMSPageResponse,
    DotCMSBasicContentlet,
    DotCMSNavigationItem,
    DotCMSAISearchResponse,
    DotErrorPage,
    DotErrorContent,
    DotErrorAISearch
} from '@dotcms/types';

const client = createDotCMSClient({
    dotcmsUrl: 'https://your-dotcms-instance.com',
    authToken: 'your-auth-token',
    siteId: 'your-site-id'
});

Typing Page Responses

import type { DotCMSPageAsset } from '@dotcms/types';

// Basic page fetch with type inference
const { pageAsset } = await client.page.get('/about-us');
// pageAsset is automatically typed as DotCMSPageAsset

// Explicit typing
const response: { pageAsset: DotCMSPageAsset } = await client.page.get('/about-us');

// Access typed properties
console.log(pageAsset.page.title);        // string
console.log(pageAsset.layout.body.rows);  // Row[]
console.log(pageAsset.viewAs.language);   // LanguageView

Typing Content Collections

import type { DotCMSBasicContentlet } from '@dotcms/types';

// Define your custom content type interface
interface BlogPost extends DotCMSBasicContentlet {
    title: string;
    body: string;
    author: string;
    publishDate: string;
    tags: string[];
}

// Use the generic type parameter for type-safe content
const response = await client.content
    .getCollection<BlogPost>('Blog')
    .limit(10);

// Now contentlets are typed as BlogPost[]
response.contentlets.forEach(post => {
    console.log(post.title);      // ✅ Type-safe: string
    console.log(post.author);     // ✅ Type-safe: string
    console.log(post.publishDate); // ✅ Type-safe: string
});

Typing AI Search Results

import { DISTANCE_FUNCTIONS } from '@dotcms/types';
import type { DotCMSAISearchResponse, DotCMSBasicContentlet } from '@dotcms/types';

// Define your content type
interface Article extends DotCMSBasicContentlet {
    title: string;
    content: string;
    category: string;
}

// Type-safe AI search
const response: DotCMSAISearchResponse<Article> = await client.ai.search<Article>(
    'machine learning tutorials',
    'content_index',
    {
        query: {
            limit: 20,
            contentType: 'Article'
        },
        config: {
            threshold: 0.75,
            distanceFunction: DISTANCE_FUNCTIONS.cosine
        }
    }
);

// Access typed results with match information
response.results.forEach(article => {
    console.log(article.title);           // ✅ Type-safe: string
    console.log(article.category);        // ✅ Type-safe: string

    // Access AI match data
    article.matches?.forEach(match => {
        console.log(match.distance);      // ✅ Type-safe: number
        console.log(match.extractedText); // ✅ Type-safe: string
    });
});

Typing Navigation

import type { DotCMSNavigationItem } from '@dotcms/types';

// Navigation is automatically typed
const nav: DotCMSNavigationItem[] = await client.navigation.get('/', {
    depth: 2,
    languageId: 1
});

// Access typed navigation properties
nav.forEach(item => {
    console.log(item.title);    // ✅ Type-safe: string
    console.log(item.href);     // ✅ Type-safe: string
    console.log(item.children); // ✅ Type-safe: DotCMSNavigationItem[] | undefined
});

Type-Safe Error Handling

import type {
    DotHttpError,
    DotErrorPage,
    DotErrorContent,
    DotErrorAISearch
} from '@dotcms/types';

try {
    const { pageAsset } = await client.page.get('/about-us');
} catch (error) {
    // Type guard for specific error types
    if (error instanceof DotErrorPage) {
        // TypeScript knows this is DotErrorPage
        console.error('Page error:', error.message);
        console.error('Context:', error.context);
        if (error.httpError) {
            console.error('Status:', error.httpError.status); // ✅ Type-safe
        }
    } else if (error instanceof DotErrorContent) {
        // TypeScript knows this is DotErrorContent
        console.error('Content error:', error.contentType);
        console.error('Operation:', error.operation);
    } else if (error instanceof DotErrorAISearch) {
        // TypeScript knows this is DotErrorAISearch
        console.error('AI Search error:', error.prompt);
        console.error('Parameters:', error.params);
    }
}

Custom Content Types with Relationships

import type { DotCMSBasicContentlet } from '@dotcms/types';

// Define related content types
interface Author extends DotCMSBasicContentlet {
    name: string;
    email: string;
    bio: string;
}

interface Category extends DotCMSBasicContentlet {
    categoryName: string;
    description: string;
}

// Main content type with relationships
interface BlogPost extends DotCMSBasicContentlet {
    title: string;
    body: string;
    author: Author;        // Nested type
    category: Category;    // Nested type
    tags: string[];
    publishDate: string;
}

// Fetch with depth to include relationships
const response = await client.content
    .getCollection<BlogPost>('Blog')
    .depth(2)
    .limit(5);

// Access nested typed properties
response.contentlets.forEach(post => {
    console.log(post.title);              // ✅ string
    console.log(post.author.name);        // ✅ string
    console.log(post.author.email);       // ✅ string
    console.log(post.category.categoryName); // ✅ string
});

Using with Async/Await and Promises

import type {
    DotCMSPageAsset,
    GetCollectionResponse
} from '@dotcms/types';

// Async function with typed return
async function fetchBlogPosts(): Promise<GetCollectionResponse<BlogPost>> {
    return await client.content
        .getCollection<BlogPost>('Blog')
        .limit(10);
}

// Promise chain with types
client.page.get('/about-us')
    .then((response: { pageAsset: DotCMSPageAsset }) => {
        console.log(response.pageAsset.page.title);
        return response;
    })
    .catch((error: DotErrorPage) => {
        console.error(error.message);
    });

How to Work with GraphQL

GraphQL allows you to fetch exactly the data you need in a single request:

Fetching All Page Fields

// Use _map to get all page fields including custom ones
const { pageAsset } = await client.page.get('/about-us', {
    graphql: {
        page: '_map'
    }
});

Querying Relationships

// Fetch related content using fragments
const { pageAsset } = await client.page.get('/blog-post', {
    graphql: {
        page: `
            containers {
                containerContentlets {
                    contentlets {
                        ... on Blog {
                            author {
                                title
                                email
                            }
                            category {
                                categoryName
                            }
                            tags {
                                tagName
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        `
    }
});

Using Variables and Fragments

// Reusable fragments with variables
const response = await client.page.get('/about-us', {
    graphql: {
        content: {
            blogPosts: `
                BlogCollection(limit: $limit) {
                    ...blogFragment
                }
            `
        },
        fragments: [
            `fragment blogFragment on Blog {
                title
                urlTitle
                blogContent {
                    json
                }
            }`
        ],
        variables: { limit: 5 }
    }
});

How to Enable Page Editing

The @dotcms/client SDK is responsible for fetching your page, while a framework SDK (@dotcms/react or @dotcms/angular) makes that page editable inside the Universal Visual Editor (UVE).

The flow is always the same three steps:

1. Fetch the page on the server with client.page.get().
2. Connect the page to the editor with the framework hook/service (useEditableDotCMSPage in React, DotCMSEditablePageService in Angular).
3. Render the layout with DotCMSLayoutBody, mapping your content types to components.

1. Fetch the page with client.page.get()

Fetch the full page response on the server. The complete response object — not just pageAsset — must be forwarded to the editor layer, because it carries the data UVE needs to track changes.

// server-side, e.g. a Next.js Server Component
import { createDotCMSClient } from '@dotcms/client';

const client = createDotCMSClient({
    dotcmsUrl: 'https://your-dotcms-instance.com',
    authToken: 'your-auth-token',
    siteId: 'your-site-id'
});

// Return the whole response so the framework SDK can make it editable
export async function getPage(path: string) {
    return await client.page.get(path);
}

2. Make the page editable (React example)

Pass the full page response into useEditableDotCMSPage. The hook keeps the page in sync with UVE while editing and returns the same pageAsset / content shape you get from client.page.get(), so the component works identically in and out of the editor.

'use client';

import { DotCMSLayoutBody, useEditableDotCMSPage } from '@dotcms/react';
import { pageComponents } from '@/components/content-types';

export function Page({ pageContent }) {
    // `pageContent` is the full response from client.page.get()
    const { pageAsset } = useEditableDotCMSPage(pageContent);

    return (
        <DotCMSLayoutBody
            page={pageAsset}
            components={pageComponents}
            mode={process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_DOTCMS_MODE}
        />
    );
}

💡 Using Angular? Use DotCMSEditablePageService together with DotCMSLayoutBody — the same fetch → make-editable → render flow applies.

3. Render the layout with DotCMSLayoutBody

DotCMSLayoutBody renders the page's rows, columns, and containers, and maps each contentlet to one of your components via the components prop. When loaded inside UVE it automatically applies the data-dot-* attributes that make the page editable — no extra wiring required.

Working example

See the page-editing flow end to end in the official Next.js example — examples/nextjs. In particular, src/views/Page.tsx uses useEditableDotCMSPage and DotCMSLayoutBody exactly as shown above.

API Reference

Client Initialization

createDotCMSClient(config: DotCMSClientConfig): DotCMSClient

Parameters

| Option | Type | Required | Description | | ---------------- | -------------------------- | -------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- | | dotcmsUrl | string | ✅ | Your dotCMS instance URL | | authToken | string | ✅ | Authentication token | | siteId | string | ❌ | Site identifier (falls back to default site if not specified) | | requestOptions | DotRequestOptions | ❌ | Additional request options | | httpClient | DotHttpClient | ❌ | Custom HTTP client implementation | | logLevel | 'default' | 'verbose' | ❌ | Controls log verbosity. 'verbose' adds status, code, and variables to error logs. Defaults to 'default' |

Example

const client = createDotCMSClient({
    dotcmsUrl: 'https://your-dotcms-instance.com',
    authToken: 'your-auth-token',
    siteId: 'your-site-id',
    httpClient: customHttpClient, // Optional: provide custom HTTP client
    logLevel: 'verbose'           // Optional: enable detailed error logs
});

[!TIP] Enable logLevel: 'verbose' during development to see HTTP status codes, error codes, and request variables in error logs. In verbose mode, error logs also include a hint to access the full GraphQL query via error.graphql.query. Keep it at 'default' (or omit it) in production to avoid noisy logs.

HTTP Client Configuration

The SDK now supports custom HTTP client implementations for advanced use cases. By default, it uses the built-in FetchHttpClient based on the native Fetch API.

Default HTTP Client

// The SDK automatically uses FetchHttpClient if no custom client is provided
const client = createDotCMSClient({
    dotcmsUrl: 'https://your-dotcms-instance.com',
    authToken: 'your-auth-token'
    // No httpClient specified - uses FetchHttpClient internally
});

Custom HTTP Client

import { BaseHttpClient } from '@dotcms/types';

// Implement your own HTTP client by extending BaseHttpClient
class CustomHttpClient extends BaseHttpClient {
    async request<T>(url: string, options?: DotRequestOptions): Promise<T> {
        // Your custom implementation
        // Must handle JSON parsing, error conversion, etc.
        return customRequest(url, options);
    }
}

const client = createDotCMSClient({
    dotcmsUrl: 'https://your-dotcms-instance.com',
    authToken: 'your-auth-token',
    httpClient: new CustomHttpClient()
});

When You Might Need a Custom HTTP Client

• Corporate Proxies: "All our API calls must go through our corporate proxy with authentication"
• Request Monitoring: "We need to log every dotCMS API call for our compliance audit trail"
• Custom Authentication: "Our enterprise SSO requires adding custom headers to every request"
• Performance Optimization: "We want to reuse HTTP connections and implement our own retry logic"

HTTP Client Features

• Automatic Response Parsing: JSON responses are automatically parsed
• Error Standardization: All HTTP failures are converted to DotHttpError instances
• Type Safety: Full TypeScript support with generic response types
• Universal Compatibility: Works in both browser and Node.js environments

page.get() Method

get<T extends DotCMSExtendedPageResponse = DotCMSPageResponse>(
  url: string,
  options?: DotCMSPageRequestParams
): Promise<DotCMSComposedPageResponse<T>>

Parameters

| Parameter | Type | Required | Description | | --------- | ------------------------ | -------- | ------------------------------- | | url | string | ✅ | Page URL path | | options | DotCMSPageRequestParams | ❌ | Request customization options |

Options

| Option | Type | Description | | ------------ | ------------------- | ---------------------------------------- | | languageId | string | number | Language version of the page | | mode | string | Rendering mode: LIVE, PREVIEW_MODE | | personaId | string | Personalize content based on persona ID | | graphql | DotCMSGraphQLParams | GraphQL options for extending response | | fireRules | boolean | Whether to trigger page rules |

Example

const { pageAsset } = await client.page.get('/about-us');

content.getCollection() Method

getCollection<T = DotCMSBasicContentlet>(
  contentType: string
): CollectionBuilder<T>

Parameters

| Parameter | Type | Required | Description | | ------------- | ------ | -------- | ------------------------------ | | contentType | string | ✅ | Content type variable name |

Builder Methods

| Method | Arguments | Description | | --------------------- | ----------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------ | | query() | string | BuildQuery | Filter content using query builder | | limit() | number | Set number of items to return | | page() | number | Set which page of results to fetch | | sortBy() | SortBy[] | Sort by one or more fields | | language() | number \| string | Set content language | | depth() | number | Set depth of related content | | includeSystemHost() | - | Include content from the System Host alongside the configured site |

Example

const blogs = await client.content.getCollection('Blog').limit(10).page(1);

content.query() Method

query<T = DotCMSBasicContentlet>(
  rawQuery: string
): RawQueryBuilder<T>

Parameters

| Parameter | Type | Required | Description | | ---------- | -------- | -------- | ---------------------- | | rawQuery | string | ✅ | Raw Lucene query string |

Builder Methods

| Method | Arguments | Description | | ------------ | ------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | limit() | number | Set number of items to return | | page() | number | Set which page of results to fetch | | sortBy() | SortBy[] | Sort by one or more fields | | render() | - | Enable server-side rendering (velocity) for widgets in returned content | | depth() | number | Set depth of related content | | language() | number \| string | Set languageId in the request body (does not modify the raw Lucene string) |

Example

const response = await client.content
    .query('+contentType:Blog +title:"Hello World"')
    .language(1)
    .limit(10);

ai.search() Method

[!WARNING] Experimental Feature: The AI API is currently experimental and may undergo breaking changes in future releases. Use with caution in production environments.

Performs semantic search using AI embeddings to find content based on meaning rather than exact keyword matches.

[!NOTE] Prerequisites: This feature requires dotAI to be activated in your dotCMS instance with a configured OpenAI API key. See the dotAI setup documentation for configuration details.

search<T extends DotCMSBasicContentlet>(
  prompt: string,
  indexName: string,
  params?: DotCMSAISearchParams
): Promise<DotCMSAISearchResponse<T>>

Parameters

| Parameter | Type | Required | Description | | ----------- | --------------------- | -------- | ------------------------------------- | | prompt | string | ✅ | Natural language search query | | indexName | string | ✅ | Name of the AI search index to query | | params | DotCMSAISearchParams | ❌ | Search configuration options |

Search Parameters (params.query)

| Option | Type | Description | | ------------- | ---------------- | ---------------------------------------- | | limit | number | Maximum number of results (default: 1000) | | offset | number | Number of results to skip (default: 0) | | contentType | string | Filter by specific content type | | languageId | string | Filter by language ID | | siteId | string | Filter by site ID |

AI Configuration (params.config)

| Option | Type | Description | | ------------------ | ------ | ----------------------------------------------- | | threshold | number | Minimum similarity score (0-1, default: 0.5) | | distanceFunction | string | Distance calculation method (default: cosine) | | responseLength | number | Maximum response length (default: 1024) |

Response

interface DotCMSAISearchResponse<T> {
    results: Array<T & {
        matches?: Array<{
            distance: number;      // Similarity score
            extractedText: string; // Matched text excerpt
        }>;
    }>;
}

Examples

Basic Search:

const results = await client.ai.search(
    'machine learning articles',
    'content_index'
);

With Parameters:

import { DISTANCE_FUNCTIONS } from '@dotcms/types';

const results = await client.ai.search(
    'AI tutorials',
    'content_index',
    {
        query: {
            limit: 20,
            contentType: 'BlogPost',
            languageId: '1'
        },
        config: {
            threshold: 0.75,
            distanceFunction: DISTANCE_FUNCTIONS.cosine
        }
    }
);

Promise-Style:

client.ai.search(
    'content management best practices',
    'content_index',
    {
        query: { limit: 10 },
        config: { threshold: 0.8 }
    }
).then((response) => {
    console.log('Found:', response.results.length);
    return response;
}).catch((error) => {
    console.error('Search failed:', error.message);
});

navigation.get() Method

get(
  uri: string,
  options?: {
    depth?: number;
    languageId?: number;
  }
): Promise<DotCMSNavigationItem[]>

Parameters

| Parameter | Type | Required | Description | | --------- | ------ | -------- | ------------------------------- | | uri | string | ✅ | Navigation root URI | | options | object | ❌ | Navigation options |

Options

| Option | Type | Description | | ------------ | ------ | ------------------------------------------ | | depth | number | Number of child levels to include | | languageId | number | Language ID for localized navigation names |

Example

const nav = await client.navigation.get('/', { depth: 2 });

Error Handling

The SDK provides comprehensive error handling with specific error types for different API operations. These domain-specific errors may wrap DotHttpError instances when HTTP failures occur and include contextual information to help with debugging.

Error Types

| Error Type | When It's Thrown | Properties | | -------------------- | ------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------- | | DotHttpError | HTTP/network failures (4xx/5xx, timeouts) | status, statusText, headers, body | | DotErrorPage | Page API failures | httpError?, context (query, variables) | | DotErrorContent | Content API failures | contentType, operation, httpError?, query? | | DotErrorAISearch | AI Search API failures | prompt, params, httpError? | | DotErrorNavigation | Navigation API failures | path, httpError? |

Basic Error Handling

try {
    const { pageAsset } = await client.page.get('/about-us');
    console.log(pageAsset.page.title);
} catch (error) {
    if (error instanceof DotErrorPage) {
        console.error('Page error:', error.message);
        console.error('Context:', error.context);
    } else {
        console.error('Unexpected error:', error);
    }
}

Content Collection Error Handling

try {
    const blogs = await client.content
        .getCollection('Blog')
        .limit(10);
} catch (error) {
    if (error instanceof DotErrorContent) {
        console.error('Content error:', error.message);
        console.error('Content type:', error.contentType);
        console.error('Operation:', error.operation);
        if (error.httpError) {
            console.error('HTTP status:', error.httpError.status);
        }
    }
}

Navigation Error Handling

try {
    const nav = await client.navigation.get('/missing-path');
} catch (error) {
    if (error instanceof DotErrorNavigation) {
        console.error('Navigation error:', error.message);
        console.error('Path:', error.path);
        if (error.httpError) {
            console.error('HTTP status:', error.httpError.status);
        }
    }
}

AI Search Error Handling

try {
    const results = await client.ai.search('machine learning', 'content_index');
} catch (error) {
    if (error instanceof DotErrorAISearch) {
        console.error('AI Search error:', error.message);
        console.error('Prompt:', error.prompt);
        console.error('Index Name:', error.indexName);
        console.error('Parameters:', error.params);
        if (error.httpError) {
            console.error('HTTP status:', error.httpError.status);
        }
    }
}

Promise-Style Error Handling

// Content collections support .then() with error handling
const result = await client.content
    .getCollection('Blog')
    .limit(10)
    .then(
        (response) => {
            console.log('Success:', response.contentlets);
            return response;
        },
        (error) => {
            console.error('Error:', error.message);
            // Return fallback data or re-throw
            return { contentlets: [], total: 0 };
        }
    );

Common Error Scenarios

401 Unauthorized

// Missing or invalid authentication token
DotHttpError: status 401, message: "Authentication required"

403 Forbidden

// Valid token but insufficient permissions
DotHttpError: status 403, message: "Access denied"

404 Not Found

// Page, content, or navigation path not found
DotErrorPage: "Page /missing-page not found. Check the page URL and permissions."

Network Errors

// Connection issues, timeouts, etc.
DotHttpError: "Network request failed"

Concepts & Architecture

Key Concepts

| Term | Description | Documentation | | ------------ | ----------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | pageAsset | The page data structure containing layout and content | Page API | | contentlet | A single piece of content in dotCMS | Content API | | collection | A group of contentlets of the same type | Content API | | graphql | Query language used to extend API responses | GraphQL |

Choosing the Right Method

The dotCMS Client SDK provides five core methods for fetching data. Use this quick guide to decide which one is best for your use case:

| Method | Use When You Need... | Best For | | -------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | client.page.get() | A full page with layout, containers, and related content | Rendering entire pages with a single request. Ideal for headless setups, SSR/SSG frameworks, and cases where you want everything—page structure, content, and navigation—tied to a URL path. | | client.content.getCollection() | A filtered list of content items from a specific content type | Populating dynamic blocks, lists, search results, widgets, or reusable components using the fluent query builder. | | client.content.query() | Full control over a raw Lucene query string | Advanced search scenarios where you need direct Lucene syntax without the getCollection() query-builder DSL or automatic contentType. field prefixing. | | client.ai.search() | Semantic/AI-powered content discovery based on natural language | Intelligent search experiences where users describe what they're looking for in natural language. Great for search features, content recommendations, and finding relevant content by meaning rather than exact keywords. ⚠️ Experimental API | | client.navigation.get() | Only the site's navigation structure (folders and links) | Standalone menus or use cases where navigation is needed outside of page context. |

Start with page.get(): The One-Request Solution

For most use cases, client.page.get() is all you need. It lets you retrieve:

• The full page layout
• Related content
• Navigation structure

All in a single request using GraphQL.

Only use content.getCollection(), content.query(), or navigation.get() if you have advanced needs, like real-time data fetching or building custom dynamic components.

🔍 For comprehensive examples of advanced GraphQL querying including relationships and custom fields, see the How to Work with GraphQL section.

Architecture Overview

The SDK follows a client-builder pattern with four main APIs:

• Page API (client.page.get()) - Fetches complete page content with layout and containers
• Content API (client.content.getCollection(), client.content.query()) - Builder pattern for querying content collections or raw Lucene queries
• AI API (client.ai.search()) - AI-powered semantic search using embeddings and vector similarity ⚠️ Experimental
• Navigation API (client.navigation.get()) - Fetches site navigation structure

All APIs support:

• Type-safe responses with TypeScript
• GraphQL query extensions (Page API)
• Localization and personalization
• Browser and Node.js compatibility

Support

We offer multiple channels to get help with the dotCMS Client SDK:

• GitHub Issues: For bug reports and feature requests, please open an issue in the GitHub repository.
• Community Forum: Join our community discussions to ask questions and share solutions.
• Stack Overflow: Use the tag dotcms-client when posting questions.
• Enterprise Support: Enterprise customers can access premium support through the dotCMS Support Portal.

When reporting issues, please include:

• SDK version you're using
• dotCMS version
• Minimal reproduction steps
• Expected vs. actual behavior

Contributing

GitHub pull requests are the preferred method to contribute code to dotCMS. We welcome contributions to the dotCMS Client SDK! If you'd like to contribute, please follow these steps:

1. Fork the repository dotCMS/core
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

Please ensure your code follows the existing style and includes appropriate tests.

Licensing

dotCMS is available under either the Business Source License 1.1 (BSL) or a commercial license.

Under the BSL, dotCMS can be used at no cost by individual developers, small businesses or agencies under $5M in total finances, and by larger organizations in non-production environments. Every BSL release automatically converts to GPL v3 four years after its release date. For full terms and FAQs, visit dotcms.com/bsl and dotcms.com/bsl-faq.

Production use in larger organizations, along with access to managed cloud, SLAs, support, and enterprise capabilities, is available under a commercial license from dotCMS. For details on commercial plans, features, and support options, see dotcms.com/pricing.

Changelog

v1.3.0

✨ Added - AI Search API (Experimental)

⚠️ Experimental Feature: The AI API is experimental and may undergo breaking changes in future releases.

New Features:

• client.ai.search() - AI-powered semantic search using embeddings and vector similarity
• Search content by meaning rather than exact keyword matches
• Support for custom AI search indexes
• Configurable similarity thresholds and distance functions
• DotErrorAISearch error class for AI-specific error handling with prompt and index context

Prerequisites:

• Requires dotAI to be activated in your dotCMS instance
• OpenAI API key must be configured
• PostgreSQL 15+ with pgvector extension
• Content indexes must be created in dotAI

Basic Usage:

// Semantic search with required index name
const results = await client.ai.search(
    'machine learning articles',
    'content_index'
);

// With advanced configuration
const results = await client.ai.search(
    'AI tutorials',
    'content_index',
    {
        query: {
            limit: 20,
            contentType: 'BlogPost'
        },
        config: {
            threshold: 0.75,
            distanceFunction: DISTANCE_FUNCTIONS.cosine
        }
    }
);

Key Features:

• Type-safe with full TypeScript support
• Supports multiple distance functions (cosine, L2, inner product, etc.)
• Returns match scores and extracted text excerpts
• Integrates seamlessly with existing content workflows

v1.1.1

Version 1.1.1 introduces significant improvements to error handling and HTTP client architecture. Most applications will continue to work without changes.

✨ Added - Enhanced Error Handling

New Features:

• Introduced specific error types: DotErrorPage, DotErrorContent, DotErrorNavigation
• Domain-specific errors wrap DotHttpError instances with contextual information
• Enhanced error context and debugging information
• Improved error handling in promise chains

Migration Required If:

• You're catching generic Error instances from SDK calls
• You're using .then() callbacks on content collections without return values
• You're parsing raw HTTP error responses manually

Before (v1.0.x):

try {
    const { pageAsset } = await client.page.get('/about');
} catch (error) {
    // Generic error handling
    console.error('Error:', error.message);
    console.error('Status:', error.status); // May not exist
}

// Collection error handling
client.content.getCollection('Blog').then(
    (response) => console.log(response),
    (error) => {
        console.error(error.status); // Raw HTTP status
        // No return value required
    }
);

After (v1.1.1):

try {
    const { pageAsset } = await client.page.get('/about');
} catch (error) {
    // Specific error type checking
    if (error instanceof DotErrorPage) {
        console.error('Page Error:', error.message);
        console.error('Context:', error.context);
        if (error.httpError) {
            console.error('HTTP Status:', error.httpError.status);
        }
    }
}

// Collection error handling with required return values
client.content.getCollection('Blog').then(
    (response) => {
        console.log(response);
        return response; // Return value recommended
    },
    (error) => {
        if (error instanceof DotErrorContent) {
            console.error('Content Error:', error.contentType, error.operation);
        }
        return { contentlets: [], total: 0 }; // Return fallback or re-throw
    }
);

✨ Added - HTTP Client Architecture

New Features:

• New DotHttpClient interface for pluggable HTTP implementations
• Default FetchHttpClient replaces direct fetch() calls
• Better TypeScript support for custom HTTP clients

Migration Required If:

• You're extending or mocking SDK internals
• You need custom HTTP behavior (proxies, interceptors, etc.)

New Capabilities:

// Custom HTTP client support
const client = createDotCMSClient({
    dotcmsUrl: 'https://your-instance.com',
    authToken: 'your-token',
    httpClient: new CustomHttpClient() // Optional: custom implementation
});

🔄 Changed - Type Updates

Improvements:

• RequestOptions renamed to DotRequestOptions
• GraphQL response types improved
• Error response types standardized

Migration Required If:

• You're importing RequestOptions directly
• You're using internal type definitions

Update Imports:

// Before
import { RequestOptions } from '@dotcms/types';

// After
import { DotRequestOptions } from '@dotcms/types';