Integrate Algolia and Contentful with React JS in 80 characters

Prerequisites

To embark on this journey, you’ll need the following:

• A Contentful account. If you don’t have one yet, sign up now!

• An Algolia account. Don’t worry if you haven’t signed up yet, you can register here.

• Intermediate knowledge of JavaScript.

• Node.js version 18 or higher.

Setting up Contentful webhooks connected with Algolia

First things first, let’s create Algolia credentials and a search index.

In your Algolia dashboard, create an application and then set up an index. You can provide any name you like for the index. For this tutorial, let’s create a blog post index.

Next, go to the Settings section (the cog icon at the bottom) in your Algolia dashboard, and navigate to Team and Access > API Keys. Copy your Application ID and Admin API Key. These credentials allow us to sync data from Contentful to the index.

In your Contentful space, head to Settings > Webhooks. Let’s use the Algolia webhook template for simplicity. Input your Algolia Application ID, index name, and the Admin API Key. This key gives us write access to the index for syncing data.

Two webhooks will be created – one for indexing entries and the other for deleting unpublished entries. Both will be configured with specific details like URL, Events, and Filters.

Now create your Post content type and index an entry!

Post content type and indexing entries

Let’s keep it simple with a Post content type that includes fields for Title, Publish Date, and Authors. These are the basic required fields for posts to appear on our listing page.

As soon as you publish a post entry, its data will be synced into the Algolia index, and you can view the data in the index!

Building the React application

Let’s kick off the React project by generating a new project called react-contentful-algolia using the Vite React template through the command line.

npm create vite@latest react-algolia -- --template react

Then, run the following commands:

cd react-algolia
npm install algoliasearch

Create a .env file in the project directory to store Algolia credentials. Replace placeholders with actual credentials.

Setting up the Algolia client

Create an algolia-client.js file in the src directory to handle the Algolia client setup and functions for fetching data.

Fetching data from the index and showing it in the client

We can now pull data and display it in our React application. Create a Post component to receive and display post data.

Sending queries to the index and refining results

Now that we can fetch posts, let’s leverage Algolia’s search capabilities for lightning-fast searches. Configure search attributes in the Algolia dashboard to refine search results.

Filtering posts

Utilize Algolia’s filtering feature by setting up facets in the index settings. Use facets to categorize search results based on attributes like category.

Wrapping Up

With this integration in place, you can keep your Algolia index updated with Contentful data and quickly fetch and filter data using Algolia’s API. The possibilities are endless, so feel free to expand this project further to suit your needs.

Remember, Algolia offers a wide range of features like sorting, search recommendations, pagination, and AI search. Keep exploring to enhance the search experience for users.

Happy coding, everyone!