Build a Blog with Eleventy (11ty) and Webiny Headless CMS

Querying the API using Axios

There are many API clients out there we can use to query a graphql end-point, some are specialized for graphql such as Apollo or graphql-request, while these are the optimal solutions we shall avoid using them in this guide to reduce complexity and a common HTTP API client Axios. One can use the FETCH API which comes as a default and requires no dependencies but it has fewer features than what Axios has to offer.

Let’s install Axios in our Eleventy Project;

npm install axios

In Eleventy it is most common to place backend querying files  under the _data directory and we shall do the same. Create a file called data.js and add the contents below, we shall get to the step-by-step breakdown in a moment.

let axios = require('axios');
let data = JSON.stringify({
 query: `{
 listPosts {
   data {
     title
     body
     author{
         name
         authoursBio
     }
   }
 }
}`,
 variables: {}
});
 
let config = {
 method: 'post',
 url: `${process.env.API_ENDPOINT}`,
 headers: {
   'Authorization': `Bearer ${process.env.WEBINY_TOKEN}`,
   'Accept': 'application/json',
   'Content-Type': 'application/json'
 },
 data : data
};
 
 
 
 
const getPosts = async () => {
   try {
     const {data}  = await axios(config)
     return data && data.data && data.data.listPosts && data.data.listPosts.data ? data.data.listPosts.data : []
   } catch (e) {
     throw new Error('There was a problem getting Post', e);
   }
 };
  exports.getPosts = getPosts;

The first step is to import the Axios library,

var axios = require('axios');

We then need to define the query we are sending to the end-point as shown below, in this case,we are trying to fetch all the blog posts and query the title, body, and author.

const data = JSON.stringify({
 query: `{
 listPosts {
   data {
     title
     body
     author{
         name
         authoursBio
     }
   }
 }
}`
 variables: {}
});

We can define Axios configurations to tell Axios what format we want the data to be in, and also add the token to the request. The method should be of type post, and the data type should be JSON, we should also have an authentication header with the bearer token set to it as shown below

let config = {
 method: 'post',
 url: `${process.env.API_ENDPOINT}`,
 headers: {
   'Authorization': `Bearer ${process.env.WEBINY_TOKEN}`,
   'Accept': 'application/json',
   'Content-Type': 'application/json'
 },
 data : data
};

If you are not familiar with .env files, it's quite simple. You just use process.env{VARIABLE_NAME} to access the variables that you set within your .env file, then you can use whatever restrictions to access the file that you see fit.

The query we defined is set as the data (body, in case you are using fetch), to be sent to the endpoint.

Create  a function getPosts, we should define it as an asynchronous function which will return an array containing a post object with an author object nested inside of it.

const getPosts = async () => {
   try {
     const {data}  = await axios(config)
     return data && data.data && data.data.listPosts && data.data.listPosts.data ? data.data.listPosts.data : []
   } catch (e) {
     throw new Error('There was a problem getting Post', e);
   }
 };

It's prudent that you make sure the function returns the required data type in this case an array, this is good programming practice, you should avoid working with a function whose return type is uncertain.

Export the function to use it in the next step.

We can then create a post.js that calls the getPost function and return an array of posts as its return type

const { getPosts } = require('./graphql/data');
 
module.exports = async () => {
 const posts = await getPosts()
 return {
   posts,
 };
};

Since we have exported this module, it means we can use the posts across the application that includes displaying them on our pages.

We will edit our index.njk file displaying a card for each blog post we have in our database, displaying the author of the blog post too.

<div class="columns">
     {%- for post in post.posts -%}
       <div class="column">
         <div class="card">
           <header class="card-header">
             <p class="card-header-title">
               {{ post.title }}
             </p>
           </header>
           <div class="card-content">
             <div class="content">
               <h6>Author: {{ post.author.name }}</h6>
               <div style=" white-space: nowrap; width: 200px; overflow: hidden;   text-overflow: ellipsis; ">{{ post.body }}</div>
             </div>
           </div>
           <footer class="card-footer">
             <a href="#" class="button is-fullwidth is-link card-footer-item">Read article</a>
           </footer>
         </div>
       </div>
     {% endfor %}
   </div>

To get the posts we call the file in which the getPosts function is called which gives us an object containing a key posts hence post.posts gives us an array of blog posts

{%- for post in post.posts -%}

We loop through the posts using a for loop and display the title author name and body of the blog post and also a button that should redirect you to that particular blog post.