airtable-schema

Workaround to retrieve the Base schema from Airtable. Waiting for improvements on Metadata API.

How it works

The functionality is really basic. It uses the Web Client API of Airtable to retrieve the schema. You can just perform this fetch:

fetch(`https://airtable.com/v0.3/application/${baseId}/read`, {
    "headers": {
        "accept": "*/*",
        "x-airtable-application-id": baseId,
        "x-requested-with": "XMLHttpRequest",
        "x-time-zone": "Europe/Berlin",
        "x-user-locale": "us",
        "Cookie": `__Host-airtable-session=${AIRTABLE_SESSION}; __Host-airtable-session.sig=${AIRTABLE_SESSION_SIG};`
    }
})

Using your Base Id and the specific Cookies than you can see on Chrome Development Tools -> Network (any readXXX call).

Or if you prefer you can use this library, that performs the fetch for you.

Finding out the cookies

Before to use this library (or to perform the fetch manually), you need to find out two cookies. You can follow these steps:

1. Go to airtable http://airtable.com
2. Open Developer tools (F12)
3. Open Network tab in Developer tools
4. Now open your base, and some record of any table.
5. In Developer tools -> Network tab: Look for any readXXX call (like readData or readForDetailView), click on it
6. Inspect the cookies on Request Headers
7. Look for these Cookies, and save the values:

__Host-airtable-session=your_host_airtable_session_value
__Host-airtable-session.sig=your_host_airtable_session_SIG_value

Installation

npm install -s airtable-schema

Configuration

Now you can configure the library. There are three options to configure.

Environment variables

You can set these two Environment Variables with the Cookie values

AIRTABLE_SESSION=your_host_airtable_session_value
AIRTABLE_SESSION_SIG=your_host_airtable_session_SIG_value

Calling configureSession

You can call configureSession function

const airtableschema = require('airtable-schema');

airtableschema.configureSession({
    airtableSession: "your_host_airtable_session_value",
    airtableSessionSig: "your_host_airtable_session_SIG_value"
});

Parameters in the methods

Or you can pass the two parameters each time you call a method.

Usage

Using configureSession:

const airtableschema = require('airtable-schema');

airtableschema.configureSession({
    airtableSession: "your_host_airtable_session_value",
    airtableSessionSig: "your_host_airtable_session_SIG_value"
});

airtableschema.getBaseSchema({
    baseId: "appASDFSADFASDF"
}).then(res => console.log(JSON.stringify(res, null, 2)));

Or, passing the session as parameters:

const airtableschema = require('airtable-schema');

airtableschema.getBaseSchema({
    baseId: "appASDFSADFASDF",
    airtableSession: "your_host_airtable_session_value",
    airtableSessionSig: "your_host_airtable_session_SIG_value"
}).then(res => console.log(JSON.stringify(res, null, 2)));

Or, if you have setted the Environment Variables:

const airtableschema = require('airtable-schema');

airtableschema.getBaseSchema({
    baseId: "appASDFSADFASDF"
}).then(res => console.log(JSON.stringify(res, null, 2)));

Methods

There are three available methods:

1. getBaseSchema(options): returns the Schema of your base, including all the tables and columns.
2. getTableSchema(options): returns the Schema of one table, including all the columns.
3. getColumnSchema(options): returns the Schema of one column of one table.

options has these possible parameters:

{
    baseId, 
    tableId, 
    columnId, 
    airtableSession, 
    airtableSessionSig
}