JSON REST API

Accent CMS can serve your content as JSON through a lightweight REST API at /api/v1/.... This turns any Accent CMS site into a headless CMS that decoupled frontends (React, Vue, mobile apps) can query directly.

The API is disabled by default. Enable it in config.yaml:

api:
  enabled: true

Endpoints

All endpoints return JSON with a consistent envelope format.

List Pages

GET /api/v1/pages

Query parameters:

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`tag`	string	–	Filter by tag
`author`	string	–	Filter by author
`sort`	string	`url`	Sort field: `url`, `title`, or `date`
`order`	string	`asc`	Sort direction: `asc` or `desc`
`limit`	integer	20	Results per page (max 100)
`offset`	integer	0	Pagination offset

Example response:

{
  "data": [
    {
      "url": "/blog/welcome",
      "title": "Welcome",
      "date": "2026-01-15",
      "tags": ["blog"],
      "status": "visible",
      "word_count": 350
    }
  ],
  "meta": {
    "total": 42,
    "limit": 20,
    "offset": 0
  }
}

Get Single Page

GET /api/v1/pages/{path}

Returns full page detail including rendered HTML content (when include_content is enabled).

{
  "data": {
    "url": "/blog/welcome",
    "title": "Welcome",
    "template": "blog.html.jinja",
    "date": "2026-01-15",
    "author": "Admin",
    "lead": "A short summary...",
    "tags": ["blog"],
    "status": "visible",
    "word_count": 350,
    "reading_time": 2,
    "language": "default",
    "content": "<p>Rendered HTML...</p>"
  }
}

Search

GET /api/v1/search?q=term

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`q`	string	required	Search query
`limit`	integer	20	Max results

Results are scored by relevance across title, URL, tags, lead, and content.

GET /api/v1/tags

Returns all tags with page counts.

Get Tag

GET /api/v1/tags/{tag}

Returns a single tag with its associated pages.

Content Tree

GET /api/v1/tree

Returns the hierarchical content structure as a nested tree.

Schema

GET /api/v1/schema

Returns metadata about the content: available templates, tags, languages, and page count.

Configuration

All API settings with their defaults:

api:
  enabled: false            # Enable the REST API
  prefix: "/api/v1"         # Route prefix
  cors: true                # Add CORS headers
  allowed_origins: ["*"]    # CORS allowed origins
  include_content: true     # Include rendered HTML in page detail

Setting include_content: false omits the content field from page detail responses, reducing payload size for listing-oriented consumers.

CORS

When cors: true, the API responds with permissive CORS headers so browsers can call the API from any origin. Restrict origins with allowed_origins when deploying to production.

Build Mode

When the API is enabled, accent build generates static JSON files alongside the HTML output:

_api/v1/pages.json
_api/v1/pages/blog/welcome/index.json
_api/v1/tags.json
_api/v1/tags/blog.json
_api/v1/tree.json
_api/v1/schema.json

These files can be served by any static file host (Netlify, Vercel, S3) to provide a fully headless API without a running server.