Contentful is a headless CMS that separates content management from how content is presented. The Contentful connector lets your RShift Sites app fetch published content from your Contentful space through the Content Delivery API. It’s designed for content-driven pages, product catalogs, blogs, and documentation where editors work in Contentful and your app renders the result.
Contentful is available as an app + chat connector: one shared connection that works in the project chat while you build and in your published apps.
With Contentful, your app can:
- Fetch published entries, assets, and content types from your space
- Filter and paginate entries by content type, locale, or field values
- Resolve linked entries and assets so pages render complete content
- Render rich text fields in your app
The Contentful connector is read-only and targets the Content Delivery API. It’s a good fit when your content is authored in Contentful and your RShift Sites app is the front end that renders it.
Common use cases and example apps
These examples show what you can build with Contentful, each with a prompt to start from.
| Example app | Example prompt | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing and landing pages | Use Contentful and build a marketing site where the homepage and feature pages load from Contentful. | Build marketing pages powered by CMS content. The app fetches page entries from Contentful and renders them as components so editors can update text and images without changing code. |
| Product catalog | Use Contentful and build a product catalog that shows products stored in my Contentful space with category filters. | Display product listings managed in Contentful. The app fetches product entries, renders product cards, and filters and paginates on fields stored in the CMS. |
| Blog and editorial site | Use Contentful and build a blog that loads articles from Contentful and renders rich text and images. | Create a blog backed by Contentful content. The app fetches article entries, resolves linked assets, and renders rich text fields as formatted content. |
| Documentation site | Use Contentful and build a documentation site where each page is an entry in Contentful. | Build documentation driven by CMS content. The app fetches documentation entries and generates navigation and pages from the content structure in Contentful. |
| Multilingual content app | Use Contentful and build an app that loads content in the visitor’s language using Contentful locales. | Serve localized content from Contentful. The app fetches entries in the requested locale and renders translated content based on the visitor’s language. |
| Event and announcement pages | Use Contentful and build an event listing page that loads upcoming events from Contentful and sorts them by date. | Display event listings managed in Contentful. The app fetches event entries, sorts them by date fields, and renders the upcoming events editors maintain in the CMS. |
How to connect Contentful
Who can create Contentful connections depends on your plan and workspace settings. App + chat connectors are available by default on Free, Pro, and Business plans. On Enterprise plans, they are effectively disabled at first: Who can create connections and clients defaults to No one until an admin changes it in Connectors → Admin settings → App + chat connectors.
You can create multiple Contentful connections using different spaces or access tokens, which is useful for separating environments (for example, development and production) or connecting several Contentful spaces.
When the connection is created, you can link it to the projects where you want to use it. Anyone building in a project can ask RShift Sites in the project chat to link their project to it.
Prerequisites
Before connecting Contentful, make sure you have:
- A Contentful account with a space that contains published content
- The Space ID of that space
- A Content Delivery API access token for that space
- Permission to create connections in your RShift Sites workspace (see Who can create connections and clients)
Step 1: Find your Space ID and create an access token
A Content Delivery API access token lets your RShift Sites app read published content from one Contentful space. Both values you need are in the Contentful web app.
To find your Space ID and create a token:
Open your Contentful space
Sign in to Contentful and open the space you want to connect.
Copy the Space ID
Go to Settings → General settings and copy the Space ID.
Create an API key
Go to Settings → API keys and click Add API key, or open an existing key you want to reuse. Give a new key a descriptive name, for example RShift Sites integration.
Copy the access token
Copy the Content Delivery API - access token. Do not copy the Content Preview API token. The connector reads published content only.
See Contentful documentation for more: Find your space ID and Authentication.
Step 2: Connect Contentful to RShift Sites
You can create multiple connections using different spaces or access tokens.
Open Contentful in Connectors
Open Connectors and select Contentful. For the other places to open the catalog from, see Where to find connectors.
Add a connection
Click Add connection.
Configure the connection
- Display name: name the connection, for example
Contentful Prod. This name is only used inside RShift Sites to identify the connection. 2. Space ID: paste the Space ID you copied from Contentful. 3. Content Delivery API access token: paste the access token.
Choose who can use this connection
Under Sharing, the connection is private to you by default and shows a Private label. To share it, click Share with others. Then add workspace members by email, or click Invite entire workspace to make the connection available to everyone in your RShift Sites workspace.
See Who can use connections and clients for more information.
Connect
Click Connect. RShift Sites verifies the token against your space through the Content Delivery API before saving the connection.
When connected, anyone building in a project can ask RShift Sites in the project chat to link their project to Contentful (based on configured connection-level access). Your RShift Sites apps can then fetch content from your Contentful space.
Working with environments
Each connection reads from one space, and RShift Sites makes the Space ID available to linked projects so you do not repeat it in prompts. Requests use your space’s master environment unless you ask for another one. To read from a different Contentful environment, name it when prompting RShift Sites, for example “load the homepage from the staging environment”.
Limitations
The Contentful connector is read-only and targets the Content Delivery API.
The Contentful connector cannot:
- Create, update, or delete content. Editors continue to manage content in the Contentful web app.
- Fetch draft or unpublished content. The connector reaches the Content Delivery API only, not the Content Preview API.
- Call the Content Management API for content authoring, space configuration, or asset uploads.
- Receive Contentful webhooks or publish events.
- Support per-end-user Contentful login. Each connection represents a single space and access token shared across all projects linked to it.
Manage your {connector_0} connection
Connections are managed from Connectors: select {connector_0}, then open the connection.
- Unlink projects to remove {connector_0} access from specific projects while keeping the connection available for others. See Unlink projects from a connection for the steps.
- Delete the connection to remove it from the workspace entirely. Deleting is permanent. It removes the credentials from all linked projects, and app features that use {connector_0} stop working until a new connection is added. See Delete a connection for the steps and who can delete.