Introducing the NostalgiaPHP REST API

NostalgiaPHP has always been about simplicity: flat files, partial templates, and portable sites. Now there’s a new way to consume your content — a minimal JSON API that makes your data available for JavaScript frontends, React components, mobile apps, or anything else that speaks HTTP.

Available Routes

The API lives under /api. Here are the routes currently available:

• /api – overview of the available routes.
• /api/health – quick check that the API is alive.
• /api/items – list items from all collections.
• /api/items/blog – list items from a specific collection.
• /api/pages – list all pages.
• /api/pages/{slug} – get a single page by slug.
• /api/tags – list all tags across collections.
• /api/tags/{tag} – list all items filtered by a tag.

Responses are JSON, sorted by date (newest first when applicable), and include:

{
  "ok": true,
  "count": 3,
  "items": [
    {
      "collection": "blog",
      "slug": "nostalgia-manifesto",
      "url": "/blog/nostalgia-manifesto",
      "title": "The NostalgiaPHP Manifesto",
      "date": "2025-09-12",
      "tags": ["intro", "php"],
      "html": "<p>Rendered HTML here...</p>"
    }
  ]
}

Filtering with Query Parameters

The API also supports simple query parameters for finer control:

By collection

Instead of /api/items/blog, you can request:

/api/items?collection=blog

By tag

To fetch only items with a certain tag:

/api/items?tag=php

Combine filters

You can mix collection and tag filters:

/api/items?collection=blog&tag=nostalgia

This makes it easy to pull exactly what you need, whether you’re building a blog feed, a tag cloud, or a project showcase.

// Example: Fetching by tag in JavaScript

fetch('/api/items?tag=php')
  .then(res => res.json())
  .then(data => console.log(data.items));

CORS Allowlist

By default, browsers enforce CORS rules when your frontend requests data from the API. NostalgiaPHP supports a configurable allowlist so you can explicitly permit which origins are allowed to fetch API data.

In your config.php, set it like this:

'api' => [
  'enabled' => true,
  'cors_allowlist' => [
    'https://svelte.dev',
    'https://nostalgiaphp.onrender.com',
    // 'http://localhost:5173', // enable for local dev if needed
  ],
],

This means only requests from those domains will receive the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header and succeed in the browser.

Why It Matters

Instead of scraping HTML or duplicating content, you can:

• Build a Svelte/React/Vue frontend that consumes your flat-file content.
• Create widgets that fetch recent blog posts.
• Use the API as a lightweight backend for apps.

It’s REST-flavored, but intentionally minimal: GET requests only, JSON out. The rest is up to you.

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🚀 Try it now: spin up php -S localhost:8000 and visit http://localhost:8000/api.