Documentation AEM as a Cloud Service User Guide

AEM GraphQL API for use with Content Fragments

Last update: April 23, 2025

Applies to:
Experience Manager as a Cloud Service

CREATED FOR:

Admin
Developer

Learn how to use Content Fragments in Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) as a Cloud Service with the AEM GraphQL API for headless content delivery.

AEM as a Cloud Service GraphQL API used with Content Fragments is heavily based on the standard, open source GraphQL API.

Using the GraphQL API in AEM enables the efficient delivery of Content Fragments to JavaScript clients in headless CMS implementations:

Avoiding iterative API requests as with REST,
Ensuring that delivery is limited to the specific requirements,
Allowing for bulk delivery of exactly what is needed for rendering as the response to a single API query.

NOTE

GraphQL is currently used in two (separate) scenarios in Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) as a Cloud Service:

AEM Commerce consumes data from a Commerce platform via GraphQL.
AEM Content Fragments work together with the AEM GraphQL API (a customized implementation, based on standard GraphQL), to deliver structured content for use in your applications.

NOTE

See AEM APIs for Structured Content Delivery and Management for an overview of the various APIs available and comparison of some of the concepts involved.

NOTE

For the latest information about Experience Manager APIs, please also visit Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service APIs.

The GraphQL API

GraphQL is:

“…a query language for APIs and a runtime for fulfilling those queries with your existing data. GraphQL provides a complete and understandable description of the data in your API, gives clients the power to ask for exactly what they need and nothing more, makes it easier to evolve APIs over time, and enables powerful developer tools.”.

See GraphQL.org
“…an open spec for a flexible API layer. Put GraphQL over your existing backends to build products faster than ever before…”.

See Explore GraphQL.
“…a data query language and specification developed internally by Facebook in 2012 before being publicly open sourced in 2015. It provides an alternative to REST-based architectures with the purpose of increasing developer productivity and minimizing amounts of data transferred. GraphQL is used in production by hundreds of organizations of all sizes…”

See GraphQL Foundation.

For information about the GraphQL API, see the following sections (amongst many other resources):

At graphql.org:
- Introduction to GraphQL
- The GraphQL Specification
At graphql.com:

The GraphQL for AEM implementation is based on the standard GraphQL Java Library. See:

GraphQL Terminology

GraphQL uses the following:

Queries
Schemas and Types:
- Schemas are generated by AEM based on the Content Fragment Models.
- Using your schemas, GraphQL presents the types and operations allowed for the GraphQL for AEM implementation.
Fields
GraphQL Endpoint
- The path in AEM that responds to GraphQL queries, and provides access to the GraphQL schemas.
- See Enabling your GraphQL Endpoint for further details.

See the (GraphQL.org) Introduction to GraphQL for comprehensive details, including the Best Practices.

GraphQL Query Types

With GraphQL you can perform queries to return either:

A single entry
A list of entries

AEM provides capabilities to convert queries (both types) to Persisted Queries, that can be cached by Dispatcher and the CDN.

GraphQL Query Best Practices (Dispatcher and CDN)

The Persisted Queries are the recommended method to be used on publish instances as:

they are cached
they are managed centrally by AEM as a Cloud Service

NOTE

Usually there is no dispatcher/CDN on author, so there is no gain in using persisted queries there; apart from testing them.

GraphQL queries using POST requests are not recommended as they are not cached, so on a default instance the Dispatcher is configured to block such queries.

While GraphQL also supports GET requests, these can hit limits (for example, the length of the URL) that can be avoided using Persisted Queries.

See Enable caching of persisted queries for further details.

NOTE

To allow direct, and/or POST, queries in the Dispatcher you can ask your System Administrator to:

Create a Cloud Manager environment variable called ENABLE_GRAPHQL_ENDPOINT
with the value true

NOTE

The ability to perform direct queries may be deprecated at some point in the future.

GraphiQL IDE

You can test and debug GraphQL queries using the GraphiQL IDE.

Use Cases for Author, Preview and Publish

The use cases can depend on the type of AEM as a Cloud Service environment:

Publish environment; used to:
- Query data for JS application (standard use-case)
Preview environment; used to:
- Preview queries prior to deploying on the Publish environment
  - Query data for JS application (standard use-case)
Author environment; used to:
- Query data for “content management purposes”:
  - GraphQL in AEM as a Cloud Service is currently a read-only API.
  - The REST API can be used for CR(u)D operations.

Permissions

The permissions are those required for accessing Assets.

GraphQL queries are executed with the permission of the AEM user of the underlying request. If the user does not have read access to some fragments (stored as Assets), they will not become part of the result set.

Also, the user must have access to a GraphQL endpoint to be able to execute GraphQL queries.

Schema Generation

GraphQL is a strongly-typed API, which means that data must be clearly structured and organized by type.

The GraphQL specification provides a series of guidelines on how to create a robust API for interrogating data on a certain instance. To do this, a client must fetch the Schema, which contains all the types necessary for a query.

For Content Fragments, the GraphQL schemas (structure and types) are based on Enabled Content Fragment Models and their data types.

CAUTION

All the GraphQL schemas (derived from Content Fragment Models that have been Enabled) are readable through the GraphQL endpoint.

This means that you need to ensure that no sensitive data is available, as it could be leaked this way; for example, this includes information that could be present as field names in the model definition.

For example, if a user created a Content Fragment Model called Article, then AEM generates a GraphQL type ArticleModel. The fields within this type correspond to the fields and data types defined in the model. In addition, it creates some entrypoints for the queries that operate on this type, such as articleByPath or articleList.

A Content Fragment Model:
The corresponding GraphQL schema (output from GraphiQL automatic documentation):

This shows that the generated type ArticleModel contains several fields.
- Three of them have been controlled by the user: author, main and referencearticle.
- The other fields were added automatically by AEM, and represent helpful methods to provide information about a certain Content Fragment; in this example, (the helper fields) _path, _metadata, _variations.
After a user creates a Content Fragment based on the Article model, it can then be interrogated through GraphQL. For examples, see the Sample Queries (based on a sample Content Fragment structure for use with GraphQL).

In GraphQL for AEM, the schema is flexible. This means that it is auto-generated each and every time a Content Fragment Model is created, updated or deleted. The data schema caches are also refreshed when you update a Content Fragment Model.

The data schema caches are also refreshed when you update a Content Fragment Model.

The Sites GraphQL service listens (in the background) for any modifications made to a Content Fragment Model. When updates are detected, only that part of the schema is regenerated. This optimization saves time and provides stability.

So for example, if you:

Install a package containing Content-Fragment-Model-1 and Content-Fragment-Model-2:
1. GraphQL types for Model-1 and Model-2 are generated.
Then modify Content-Fragment-Model-2:
1. Only the Model-2 GraphQL type will get updated.
2. Whereas Model-1 will remain the same.

NOTE

This is important to note in case you want to do bulk updates on Content Fragment Models through the REST api, or otherwise.

The schema is served through the same endpoint as the GraphQL queries, with the client handling the fact that the schema is called with the extension GQLschema. For example, performing a simple GET request on /content/cq:graphql/global/endpoint.GQLschema will result in the output of the schema with the Content-type: text/x-graphql-schema;charset=iso-8859-1.

Schema Generation - Unpublished Models

When Content Fragments are nested it can happen that a parent Content Fragment Model is published, but a referenced model is not.

NOTE

The AEM UI prevents this happening, but if publishing is made programmatically, or with content packages, it can occur.

When this happens, AEM generates an incomplete Schema for the parent Content Fragment Model. This means that the Fragment Reference, which is dependent on the unpublished model, is removed from the schema.

Fields

Within the schema there are individual fields, of two basic categories:

Fields that you generate.

A selection of Data Types are used to create fields based on how you configure your Content Fragment Model. The field names are taken from the Property Name field of the Data Type tab.
- There is also the Render As setting to take into consideration, as users can configure certain data types. For example, a single line text field can be configured to contain multiple single line texts by choosing multifield from the drop-down list.
GraphQL for AEM also generates several helper fields.

Data Types

GraphQL for AEM supports a list of types. All the supported Content Fragment Model Data Types and the corresponding GraphQL types are represented:

Content Fragment Model - Data Type

GraphQL Type

Description

Single line Text

String, [String]

Used for simple strings such as author names, location names, and so on.

Multi line Text

String, [String]

Used for outputting text such as the body of an article

Number

Float, [Float]

Used to display floating point number and regular numbers

Boolean

Boolean

Used to display checkboxes → simple true/false statements

Date And Time

Calendar

Used to display date and time in an ISO 8601 format. Depending on the type selected, there are three flavors available for use in AEM GraphQL: onlyDate, onlyTime, dateTime

Enumeration

String

Used to display an option from a list of options defined at model creation

Helper Fields

In addition to the data types for user generated fields, GraphQL for AEM also generates several helper fields to help identify a Content Fragment, or to provide additional information about a Content Fragment.

These helper fields are marked with a preceding _ to distinguish between what has been defined by the user and what has been auto-generated.

Path

The path field is used as an identifier in AEM GraphQL. It represents the path of the Content Fragment asset inside the AEM repository. We have chosen this as the identifier of a Content Fragment, because it:

is unique within AEM,
can be easily fetched.

The following code will display the paths of all Content Fragments that were created based on the Content Fragment Model Author, as provided by the WKND tutorial.

{
  authorList {
    items {
      _path
    }
  }
}

To retrieve a single Content Fragment of a specific type, you also need to determine its path first. For example:

{
  authorByPath(_path: "/content/dam/wknd-shared/en/contributors/sofia-sj-berg") {
    item {
      _path
      firstName
      lastName
    }
  }
}

See Sample Query - A Single Specific City Fragment.

ID (UUID)

The ID field is also used as an identifier in AEM GraphQL. It represents the path of the Content Fragment asset inside the AEM repository, but instead of holding the actual path it holds a UUID representing the resource. We have chosen this as the identifier of a Content Fragment, because it:

is unique within AEM,
can be easily fetched,
does not change when the resource is moved.

The UUID for a Content Fragment and for a referenced Content Fragment, or asset, can be returned through the JSON property _id.

{
  articleList {
    items {
        _id
        _path
    }
  }
}

Metadata

Through GraphQL, AEM also exposes the metadata of a Content Fragment. Metadata is the information that describes a Content Fragment, such as the title of a Content Fragment, the thumbnail path, the description of a Content Fragment, the date it was created, amongst others.

Because Metadata is generated through the Schema Editor and as such does not have a specific structure, the TypedMetaData GraphQL type was implemented to expose the metadata of a Content Fragment. TypedMetaData exposes the information grouped by the following scalar types:

Field

stringMetadata:[StringMetadata]!

stringArrayMetadata:[StringArrayMetadata]!

intMetadata:[IntMetadata]!

intArrayMetadata:[IntArrayMetadata]!

floatMetadata:[FloatMetadata]!

floatArrayMetadata:[FloatArrayMetadata]!

booleanMetadata:[BooleanMetadata]!

booleanArrayMetadata:[booleanArrayMetadata]!

calendarMetadata:[CalendarMetadata]!

calendarArrayMetadata:[CalendarArrayMetadata]!

Each scalar type represents either a single name-value pair or an array of name-value pairs, where the value of that pair is of the type it was grouped in.

For example, if you want to retrieve the title of a Content Fragment, we know that this property is a String property, so we would query for all the String Metadata:

To query for metadata:

{
  authorByPath(_path: "/content/dam/wknd-shared/en/contributors/sofia-sj-berg") {
    item {
      _metadata {
        stringMetadata {
          name
          value
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

You can view all the metadata GraphQL types if you view the Generated GraphQL schema. All model types have the same TypedMetaData.

NOTE

Difference between normal and array metadata
Keep in mind that StringMetadata and StringArrayMetadata both refer to what is stored in the repository, not how you retrieve them.

So for example, by calling the stringMetadata field, you would receive an array of all the metadata that was stored in the repository as a String , and if you call stringArrayMetadata you would receive an array of all the metadata that was stored in the repository as String[].

See Sample Query for Metadata - List the Metadata for Awards titled GB.

Variations

The _variations field has been implemented to simplify querying the variations that a Content Fragment has. For example:

{
  authorByPath(_path: "/content/dam/wknd-shared/en/contributors/ian-provo") {
    item {
      _variations
    }
  }
}

NOTE

The _variations field does not contain a master variation, as technically the original data (referenced as Master in the UI) is not considered an explicit variation.

See Sample Query - All Cities with a Named Variation.

NOTE

If the given variation does not exist for a Content Fragment, then the original data (also known as the master variation) is returned as a (fallback) default.

GraphQL Variables

GraphQL permits variables to be placed in the query. For more information, see GraphQL documentation for Variables.

For example, to get all Content Fragments of type Author in a specific variation (if available), you can specify the argument variation in GraphiQL.

GraphQL Variables

Query:

query($variation: String!) {
  authorList(variation: $variation) {
    items {
      _variation
      lastName
      firstName
    }
  }
}

Query Variables:

{
  "variation": "another"
}

This query will return the full list of authors. Authors without the another variation will fall back to the original data (_variation will report master in this case).

Apply a filter, if you want to restrict the list to authors that provide the specified variation (and skip authors that would fall back to the original data):

query($variation: String!) {
  authorList(variation: $variation, filter: {
    _variation: {
      _expressions: {
        value: $variation
      }
    }
  }) {
    items {
      _variation
      lastName
      firstName
    }
  }
}

GraphQL Directives

In GraphQL there is a possibility to change the query based on variables, called GraphQL Directives.

For example, there you can include the adventurePrice field in a query for all the AdventureModels, based on a variable includePrice.

GraphQL Directives

Query:

query GetAdventureByType($includePrice: Boolean!) {
  adventureList {
    items {
      title
      price @include(if: $includePrice)
    }
  }
}

Query Variables:

{
    "includePrice": true
}

Filtering

You can also use filtering in your GraphQL queries to return specific data.

Filtering uses a syntax based on logical operators and expressions.

The most atomic part is a single expression that can be applied to the content of a certain field. It compares the content of the field with a given constant value.

For example, the expression

{
  value: "some text"
  _op: EQUALS
}

would compare the content of the field with the value some text and succeeds if the content equals the value. Otherwise, the expression will fail.

The following operators can be used to compare fields to a certain value:

Operator

Type(s)

The expression succeeds if …

EQUALS

String, ID, Boolean

… the value is exactly the same as the content of the field

EQUALS_NOT

String, ID

… the value is not the same as the content of the field

CONTAINS

String

… the content of the field contains the value ({ value: "mas", _op: CONTAINS } will match Christmas, Xmas, master, …)

CONTAINS_NOT

String

… the content of the field does not contain the value

STARTS_WITH

ID

… the ID starts with a certain value ({ value: "/content/dam/", _op: STARTS_WITH will match /content/dam/path/to/fragment, but not /namespace/content/dam/something

EQUAL

Int, Float

… the value is exactly the same as the content of the field

UNEQUAL

Int, Float

… the value is not the same as the content of the field

GREATER

Int, Float

… the content of the field is greater than the value

GREATER_EQUAL

Int, Float

… the content of the field is greater than or equal to the value

LOWER

Int, Float

… the content of the field is lower than the value

LOWER_EQUAL

Int, Float

… the content of the field is lower than or equal to the value

AT

Calendar, Date, Time

… the content of the field is exactly the same as the value (including timezone setting)

NOT_AT

Calendar, Date, Time

… the content of the field is not the same as the value

BEFORE

Calendar, Date, Time

… the point in time denoted by the value is before the point in time denoted by the content of the field

AT_OR_BEFORE

Calendar, Date, Time

… the point in time denoted by the value is before or at the same point in time denoted by the content of the field

AFTER

Calendar, Date, Time

… the point in time denoted by the value is after the point in time denoted by the content of the field

AT_OR_AFTER

Calendar, Date, Time

… the point in time denoted by the value is after or at the same point in time denoted by the content of the field

Some types also let you specify additional options that modify how an expression is evaluated:

Option

Type(s)

Description

_ignoreCase

String

Ignores the case of a string, for example, a value of time matches TIME, time, tImE, …

_sensitiveness

Float

Allows a certain margin for float values to be considered the same (to work around technical limitations due to the internal representation of float values; should be avoided, as this option might have a negative impact on performance

Expressions can be combined to a set with the help of a logical operator (_logOp):

OR - the set of expressions will succeed if at least one expression succeeds
AND - the set of expressions will succeed if all expressions succeed (default)

Each field can be filtered by its own set of expressions. The expression sets of all fields mentioned in the filter argument will eventually be combined by its own logical operator.

A filter definition (passed as the filter argument to a query) contains:

A sub-definition for each field (the field can be accessed through its name, for example, there’s a lastName field in the filter for the lastName field in the Data (field) Type)
Each sub-definition contains the _expressions array, providing the expression set, and the _logOp field that defines the logical operator the expressions should be combined with
Each expression is defined by the value (value field) and the operator (_operator field) the content of a field should be compared to

You can omit _logOp if you want to combine items with AND and _operator if you want to check for equality, as these are the default values.

The following example demonstrates a full query that filters all persons that have a lastName of Provo or containing sjö, independent of the case:

{
  authorList(filter: {
    lastname: {
      _logOp: OR
      _expressions: [
        {
          value: "sjö",
          _operator: CONTAINS,
          _ignoreCase: true
        },
        {
          value: "Provo"
        }
      ]
    }
  }) {
    items {
      lastName
      firstName
    }
  }
}

While you can also filter on nested fields, it is not recommended, as it might lead to performance issues.

For further examples, see:

details of the GraphQL for AEM extensions
Sample Queries using this Sample Content and Structure
- And the Sample Content and Structure prepared for use in sample queries
Sample Queries based on the WKND Project

Sorting

NOTE

For best performance consider Updating your Content Fragments for Paging and Sorting in GraphQL Filtering.

This feature lets you sort the query results according to a specified field.

The sorting criteria:

is a comma separated list of values representing the field path
- the first field in the list will define the primary sort order, the second field is used if two values of the primary sort criterion are equal, the third one if the first two criteria are equal, and so on.
- dotted notation, that is, field1.subfield.subfield and so on…
with an optional order direction
- ASC (ascending) or DESC (descending); as default ASC is applied
- the direction can be specified per field; this means that you can sort one field in ascending order, another one in descending order (name, firstName DESC)

For example:

query {
  authorList(sort: "lastName, firstName") {
    items {
      firstName
      lastName
    }
  }
}

And also:

{
  authorList(sort: "lastName DESC, firstName DESC") {
    items {
        lastName
        firstName
    }
  }
}

You can also sort on a field within a nested fragment, using the format of nestedFragmentname.fieldname.

NOTE

This might have a negative impact on performance.

For example:

query {
  articleList(sort: "authorFragment.lastName")  {
    items {
      title
      authorFragment {
        firstName
        lastName
        birthDay
      }
      slug
    }
  }
}

Paging

NOTE

For best performance consider Updating your Content Fragments for Paging and Sorting in GraphQL Filtering.

This feature lets you perform paging on query types that returns a list. Two methods are provided:

offset and limit in a List query
first and after in a Paginated query

List query - offset and limit

In a ...Listquery you can use offset and limit to return a specific subset of results:

offset: Specifies the first data set to return
limit: Specifies the maximum number of data sets to be returned

For example, to output the page of results containing up to five articles, starting from the fifth article from the complete results list:

query {
   articleList(offset: 5, limit: 5) {
    items {
      authorFragment {
        lastName
        firstName
      }
    }
  }
}

NOTE

Paging requires a stable sort order to work correctly across multiple queries requesting different pages of the same result set. By default it uses the repository path of each item of the result set to make sure the order is always the same. If a different sort order is used, and if that sorting cannot be done at JCR query level, then there is a negative performance impact as the entire result set must be loaded into memory before the pages can be determined.
The higher the offset, the more time it will take to skip the items from the complete JCR query result set. An alternative solution for large result sets is to use the Paginated query with first and after method.

Paginated query - first and after

The ...Paginated query type reuses most of the ...List query type features (filtering, sorting), but instead of using offset/limit arguments, it uses the first/after arguments as defined by the GraphQL Cursor Connections Specification. You can find a less formal introduction in the GraphQL introduction.

first: The n first items to return.
The default is 50.
The maximum is 100.
after: The cursor that determines the beginning of the requested page; note that the item represented by the cursor is not included in the result set; the cursor of an item is determined by the cursor field of the edges structure.

For example, output the page of results containing up to five adventures, starting from the given cursor item in the complete results list:

query {
    adventurePaginated(first: 5, after: "ODg1MmMyMmEtZTAzMy00MTNjLThiMzMtZGQyMzY5ZTNjN2M1") {
        edges {
          cursor
          node {
            title
          }
        }
        pageInfo {
          endCursor
          hasNextPage
        }
    }
}

NOTE

By default, paging uses the UUID of the repository node representing the fragment for ordering to ensure the order of results is always the same. When sort is used, the UUID is implicitly used to ensure a unique sort; even for two items with identical sort keys.
Due to internal technical constraints, performance will degrade if sorting and filtering is applied on nested fields. Therefore it is recommended to use filter/sort fields stored at root level. This is also the recommended way if you want to query large paginated result sets.

Web-optimized image delivery in GraphQL queries

Web-optimized image delivery lets you use a Graphql query to:

Request a URL to a DAM asset image (referenced by a Content Reference)
Pass parameters with the query, so that a specific rendition of the image is automatically generated and returned

NOTE
The rendition specified is not stored in AEM Assets. The rendition is generated and held in cache for a short period.
Return the URL as part of the JSON delivery

You can use AEM to:

Pass Web-Optimized Image Delivery into GraphQL queries.

This means that the commands get applied during query execution, in the same way as URL parameters on GET requests for those images.

This lets you dynamically create image renditions for JSON delivery, which avoids having to manually create and store those renditions in the repository.

The solution in GraphQL means you can:

Request a URL: use _dynamicUrl on the ImageRef reference
Pass parameters: add _assetTransform to the list header where your filters are defined

NOTE

A Content Reference can be used for both DAM assets and Dynamic Media assets. Retrieving the appropriate URL uses different parameters:

_dynamicUrl : a DAM asset
_dmS7Url : a Dynamic Media asset

If the asset referenced is a DAM asset then the value for _dmS7Url will be null. See Dynamic Media asset delivery by URL in GraphQL queries.

Structure of the Transformation Request

AssetTransform (_assetTransform) is used to make the URL transformation requests.

The structure and syntax is:

format: an enumeration with all supported formats by its extension: GIF, PNG, PNG8, JPG, PJPG, BJPG, WEBP, WEBPLL or WEBPLY
seoName: a string that is used as file name instead of the node name
crop: a frame sub structure, if width or height is omitted then the height or width is used as the same value
- xOrigin: the x origin of the frame and is mandatory
- yOrigin: the y origin of the frame and is mandatory
- width: the width of the frame
- height: the height of the frame
size: a dimension sub structure, if width or height is omitted then the height or width is used as the same value
- width: the width of the dimension
- height: the height of the dimension
rotation: an enumeration of all supported rotations: R90, R180, R270
flip: an enumeration of HORIZONTAL, VERTICAL, HORIZONTAL_AND_VERTICAL
quality: an integer from 1–100 notating the percentage of the image quality
width: an integer that defines the width of the output image but is ignored by the Image Generator
preferWebp: a boolean that indicates if webp is preferred (default value is false)

The URL transform is available for all query types: by path, list or paginated.

Web-optimized image delivery with full parameters

The following is a sample query with a full set of parameters:

{
  articleList(
    _assetTransform: {
      format:GIF
      seoName:"test"
      crop:{
        xOrigin:10
        yOrigin:20
        width:50
        height:45
      }
      size:{
        height:100
        width:200
      }
      rotation:R90
      flip:HORIZONTAL_AND_VERTICAL
      quality:55
      width:123
      preferWebp:true
    }
  ) {
    items {
      _path
      featuredImage {
        ... on ImageRef {
          _dynamicUrl
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Web-optimized image delivery with a single query variable

The following example shows the use of a single query variable:

query ($seoName: String!) {
  articleList(
    _assetTransform: {
      format:GIF
      seoName:$seoName
      crop:{
        xOrigin:10
        yOrigin:20
        width:50
        height:45
      }
      size:{
        height:100
        width:200
      }
      rotation:R90
      flip:HORIZONTAL_AND_VERTICAL
      quality:55
      width:123
      preferWebp:true
    }
  ) {
    items {
      _path
      featuredImage {
        ... on ImageRef {
          _dynamicUrl
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Web-optimized image delivery with multiple query variables

The following example shows the use of multiple query variables:

query ($seoName: String!, $format: AssetTransformFormat!) {
  articleList(
    _assetTransform: {
      format:$format
      seoName:$seoName
      crop:{
        xOrigin:10
        yOrigin:20
        width:50
        height:45
      }
      size:{
        height:100
        width:200
      }
      rotation:R90
      flip:HORIZONTAL_AND_VERTICAL
      quality:55
      width:123
      preferWebp:true
    }
  ) {
    items {
      _path
      featuredImage {
        ... on ImageRef {
          _dynamicUrl
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Web-optimized image delivery request by URL

If you save your query as a persisted query (for example, with the name dynamic-url-x) you can then execute the persisted query directly.

For example, to directly execute the previous samples (saved as persisted queries), use the following URLs:

Single Parameter; Persisted Query named dynamic-url-x
- http://localhost:4502/graphql/execute.json/wknd-shared/dynamic-url-x;seoName=xxx
  
  The response will look like:
Multiple Parameters; Persisted Query named dynamic
- http://localhost:4502/graphql/execute.json/wknd-shared/dynamic;seoName=billiboy;format=GIF;
  
  CAUTION
  The trailing ;is mandatory to cleanly terminate the list of parameters.

Limitations of web-optimized image delivery

The following limitations exist:

Modifiers applied to all images part of the query (global parameters)
Caching headers
- No caching on author
- Caching on publish - max-age of 10 minutes (cannot be changed by client)

Dynamic Media asset delivery by URL in GraphQL queries

GraphQL for AEM Content Fragments allows you to request a URL to an AEM Dynamic Media (Scene7) asset (referenced by a Content Reference).

The solution in GraphQL means you can:

use _dmS7Url on the ImageRef reference
- see Sample query for Dynamic Media asset delivery by URL - Image Reference
use _dmS7Url on multiple references; ImageRef, MultimediaRef and DocumentRef
- see Sample query for Dynamic Media asset delivery by URL - Multiple References
use _dmS7Url with Smart Crop functionality
- The _smartCrops property exposes the Smart Crop configurations available for a specific asset
- see Sample query for Dynamic Media asset delivery by URL - with Smart Crop

NOTE

For this you need to have a Dynamic Media Cloud Configuration.

This adds the dam:scene7File and dam:scene7Domain attributes on the asset’s metadata when it is created.

NOTE

A Content Reference can be used for both DAM assets and Dynamic Media assets. Retrieving the appropriate URL uses different parameters:

_dmS7Url : a Dynamic Media asset
_dynamicUrl : a DAM asset

If the asset referenced is a Dynamic Media asset then the value for _dynamicURL will be null. See web-optimized image delivery in GraphQL queries.

Sample query for Dynamic Media asset delivery by URL - Image Reference

The following is a sample query:

for multiple Content Fragments of type team and person, returning an ImageRef

query allTeams {
  teamList {
    items {
      _path
      title
      teamMembers {
        fullName
        profilePicture {
          __typename
          ... on ImageRef{
            _dmS7Url
            height
            width
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Sample query for Dynamic Media asset delivery by URL - Multiple References

The following is a sample query:

for multiple Content Fragments of type team and person, returning an ImageRef, MultimediaRef and DocumentRef:

query allTeams {
  teamList {
    items {
      _path
      title
      teamMembers {
        fullName
        profilePicture {
          __typename
          ... on ImageRef{
            _dmS7Url
            height
            width
          }
        }
       featureVideo {
          __typename
          ... on MultimediaRef{
            _dmS7Url
            size
          }
        }
      about-me {
          __typename
          ... on DocumentRef{
            _dmS7Url
            _path
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Sample query for Dynamic Media asset delivery by URL - with Smart Crop

The following is a sample query:

to expose the Smart Crop configurations available for the requested assets

query allTeams {
  teamList {
    items {
      title
      teamMembers {
        profilePicture {
          ... on ImageRef {
            height
            width
            _dmS7Url
            _smartCrops {
              width
              height
              name
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Dynamic Media for OpenAPI asset support (Remote Assets)

Remote assets integration allows you to reference Assets, that are not local to the current AEM instance, from the Content Fragment Editor. It is implemented by Dynamic Media for OpenAPI asset support in Content Fragment Editor and GraphQL JSON.

Sample query for Dynamic Media for OpenAPI asset support (Remote Assets)

The following is a sample request:

to illustrate the concept of referencing remote assets

{
  testModelList {
    items {
      remoteasset {
        ... on RemoteRef {
            repositoryId
                assetId
        }
      }
      multiplecontent {
        ... on ImageRef {
          _path
          _authorUrl
          _publishUrl
        }
        ... on RemoteRef {
            repositoryId
            assetId
        }
      }
    }
    _references {
      ... on ImageRef {
          _path
          _authorUrl
          _publishUrl
        }
        ... on RemoteRef {
            repositoryId
            assetId
        }
    }
  }
}

the response

{
  "data": {
    "testModelList": {
      "items": [
        {
          "remoteasset": {
            "repositoryId": "delivery-p123456-e123456.adobeaemcloud.com",
            "assetId": "urn:aaid:aem:1fb05fe4-c12b-4f85-b1ca-aa92cdbd6a62"
          },
          "multiplecontent": [
            {
              "repositoryId": "delivery-p123456-e123456.adobeaemcloud.com",
              "assetId": "urn:aaid:aem:1fb05fe4-c12b-4f85-b1ca-aa92cdbd6a62"
            },
            {
              "_path": "/content/dam/test-folder/test.jpg",
              "_authorUrl": "http://localhost:4502/content/dam/test-folder/test.jpg",
              "_publishUrl": "http://localhost:4503/content/dam/test-folder/test.jpg"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "_references": [
        {
          "repositoryId": "delivery-p123456-e123456.adobeaemcloud.com",
          "assetId": "urn:aaid:aem:1fb05fe4-c12b-4f85-b1ca-aa92cdbd6a62"
        },
        {
          "_path": "/content/dam/test-folder/test.jpg",
          "_authorUrl": "http://localhost:4502/content/dam/test-folder/test.jpg",
          "_publishUrl": "http://localhost:4503/content/dam/test-folder/test.jpg"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Limitations

The current limitations are:

GraphQL delivery supports only repositoryId and assetId (other asset metadata is not returned)

NOTE
The full URL then needs to be constructed on the client side, based on the Asset delivery API.
Only Approved assets will be available for reference from the remote repositories
If an asset that is referenced is removed from the remote repository, this will result in a broken Content Fragment Asset reference.
All Delivery Asset Repositories to which the user has access, will be available for selection, the available list cannot be limited.
Both the AEM instance and the Remote Asset Repository instances must be the same version.
No Asset Metadata is exposed via the Management Sites API and the AEM Content Fragment Delivery with OpenAPI. You have to use the Asset Metadata API to retrieve the asset metadata details.

GraphQL for AEM - Summary of Extensions

The basic operation of queries with GraphQL for AEM adhere to the standard GraphQL specification. For GraphQL queries with AEM there are a few extensions:

If you require a single result:
- use the model name; for example, city
If you expect a list of results:
- add List to the model name; for example, cityList
- See Sample Query - All Information about All Cities
You can then:
- Sort the results
  - ASC : ascending
  - DESC : descending
- Return a page of results using either:
  - A List query with offset and limit
  - A Paginated query with first and after
- See Sample Query - All Information about All Cities
The filter includeVariations is included in the List and Paginated query types. To retrieve Content Fragment Variations in the query results, then the includeVariations filter must be set to true.
- See Sample Query for multiple Content Fragments, and their Variations, of a given Model
CAUTION
The filter includeVariations and the system-generated field _variation cannot be used together in the same query definition.
If you want to use a logical OR:
- use _logOp: OR
- See Sample Query - All Persons that have a name of “Jobs” or “Smith”
Logical AND also exists, but is (often) implicit
You can query on field names that correspond to the fields within the Content Fragment Model
- See Sample Query - Full Details of a Company’s CEO and Employees
In addition to the fields from your model, there are some system-generated fields (preceded by underscore):
- For content:
  - _locale : to reveal the language; based on Language Manager
    - See Sample Query for multiple Content Fragments of a given locale
  - _metadata : to reveal metadata for your fragment
    - See Sample Query for Metadata - List the Metadata for Awards titled GB
  - _model : allow querying for a Content Fragment Model (path and title)
    - See Sample Query for a Content Fragment Model from a Model
  - _path : the path to your Content Fragment within the repository
    - See Sample Query - A Single Specific City Fragment
  - _id : the UUID for your Content Fragment within the repository
    - See Sample Query for a Content Fragment of a specific Model with UUID references
    - See Sample Query for Content Fragments by UUID reference
  - _reference : to reveal references; including inline references in the Rich Text Editor
    - See Sample Query for multiple Content Fragments with Prefetched References
  - _variation : to reveal specific Variations within your Content Fragment
    
    NOTE
    If the given variation does not exist for a Content Fragment, then the master variation is returned as a (fallback) default.
    
    CAUTION
    The system-generated field _variation cannot be used together with the filter includeVariations.
    - See Sample Query - All Cities with a Named Variation
- For image delivery:
  - _authorURL: the full URL to the image asset on AEM Author
  - _publishURL: the full URL to the image asset on AEM Publish
  - For web-optimized image delivery (of DAM assets):
    - _dynamicUrl: the full URL to the web-optimized DAM asset on the ImageRef reference
      
      NOTE
      _dynamicUrl is the preferred URL to use for web-optimized DAM assets and should replace the use of _path, _authorUrl, and _publishUrl whenever possible.
    - _assetTransform: to pass parameters on the list header where your filters are defined
    - See:
      - Sample Query for web-optimized image delivery with full parameters
      - Sample Query for web-optimized image delivery with a single specified parameter
  - _dmS7Url: on the ImageRef reference for the delivery of the URL to a Dynamic Media asset
    - See Sample query for Dynamic Media asset delivery by URL - ImageRef
    - See Sample query for Dynamic Media asset delivery by URL - Multiple References
- _tags: to reveal the IDs of Content Fragments or Variations that contain tags; this is an array of cq:tags identifiers.
  NOTE
  Tags can also be queried by listing the Metadata of a Content Fragment.
- And operations:
  - _operator : apply specific operators; EQUALS, EQUALS_NOT, GREATER_EQUAL, LOWER, CONTAINS, STARTS_WITH
    - See Sample Query - All Persons that do not have a name of “Jobs”
    - See Sample Query - All Adventures where the _path starts with a specific prefix
  - _apply : to apply specific conditions; for example, AT_LEAST_ONCE
    - See Sample Query - Filter on an array with an item that must occur at least once
  - _ignoreCase : to ignore the case when querying
    - See Sample Query - All cities with SAN in the name, irrespective of case
GraphQL union types are supported:
- use ... on
  - See Sample Query for a Content Fragment of a specific Model with a Content Reference
Fallback when querying nested fragments:
- If a given variation does not exist in a nested fragment, then the Master variation would be returned.

Querying the GraphQL endpoint from an External Website

To access the GraphQL endpoint from an external website you need to configure the:

Authentication

See Authentication for Remote AEM GraphQL Queries on Content Fragments.

Automated Testing

When running a deployment pipeline in AEM Cloud Manager, automated tests are run during pipeline execution.

To provide accurate results, your AEM as a Cloud Service Stage environment should mirror your Production environment as closely as possible. This is especially important for content.

You can achieve this by using the AEM as a Cloud Service Content Copy Tool to copy your Production content to the Stage environment.

Limitations

To protect against potential problems there are default limitations imposed on your queries:

The query cannot contain more than 1M (1024 * 1024) characters
The query cannot contain more than 15000 tokens
The query cannot contain more than 200000 whitespace tokens

You also need to aware of:

A field conflict error will be returned when your GraphQL query contains fields with the same name in two (or more) models, and the following conditions are met:
- So where:
  - Two (or more models) are used as possible references; when they are defined as an allowed Model Type in the Content Fragment reference.
  and:
  - These two models have fields having a common name; that means the same name occurs in both models.
  and
  - Those fields are of different data types.
- For example:
  - When two (or more) fragments with different models (for example, M1, M2) are used as possible references (Content Reference or Fragment Reference) from another fragment; for example, Fragment1 MultiField/List
  - And these two fragments with different models (M1, M2) have fields with the same name, but different types.
    To illustrate:
    - M1.Title as Text
    - M2.Title as Text/MultiField
  - Then a field conflict error will occur if the GraphQL query contains the Title field.

FAQs

Questions that have arisen:

Q: “How is the GraphQL API for AEM different from Query Builder API?”
- A:
  “The AEM GraphQL API offers total control on the JSON output, and is an industry standard for querying content.
  Moving forward, AEM is planning to invest in the AEM GraphQL API.”

Tutorial - Getting Started with AEM Headless and GraphQL

Looking for a hands-on tutorial? Check out Getting Started with AEM Headless and GraphQL end-to-end tutorial illustrating how to build-out and expose content using AEM’s GraphQL APIs and consumed by an external app, in a headless CMS scenario.

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