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The Content Delivery Service (CDS) is a read-only API for your frontend. It serves published content — posts, categories, tags, authors, and site configuration — and is safe to call from your server-rendered pages.
The CDS is designed for reading content only. To create or modify content, see the Manage Content (CMS) quickstart.

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Prerequisites

You need three values from the Publive Dashboard:
ValueWhere to find it
API KeyDashboard → Configurations → API Developer Hub → View API Credentials
API SecretSame location as above
Publisher IDVisible in your Dashboard URL

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Step 1: Build your auth token

The CDS uses HTTP Basic Auth. Encode your key and secret together: 
echo -n 'YOUR_API_KEY:YOUR_API_SECRET' | base64
This outputs a token like dXNlcjpwYXNz. Store it as an environment variable: 
export PUBLIVE_AUTH="dXNlcjpwYXNz"
export PUBLIVE_PUBLISHER_ID="12345"
Never include this token in client-side JavaScript. All CDS calls should be made server-side or through a backend proxy.

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Step 2: Fetch your first posts

curl -X GET \
  "https://cds.thepublive.com/publisher/${PUBLIVE_PUBLISHER_ID}/posts/?limit=5" \
  -H "Authorization: Basic ${PUBLIVE_AUTH}"
Response: 
{
  "status": "ok",
  "data": [
    {
      "id": 12345,
      "title": "My First Article",
      "slug": "my-first-article",
      "type": "Article",
      "primary_category": {
        "id": 1,
        "name": "News",
        "slug": "news"
      },
      "contributors": [
        {
          "id": 1,
          "name": "Jane Doe",
          "slug": "jane-doe"
        }
      ],
      "content_html": "<p>Article content here...</p>",
      "absolute_url": "/news/my-first-article-12345"
    }
  ],
  "message": "",
  "page_no": 1,
  "per_page": 5
}
The data array contains your published posts. Use page_no and per_page to paginate — add ?page=2&limit=10 to the URL to walk through results.

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Step 3: Fetch a single post

Use the id from any post in the listing response: 
curl -X GET \
  "https://cds.thepublive.com/publisher/${PUBLIVE_PUBLISHER_ID}/post/12345/" \
  -H "Authorization: Basic ${PUBLIVE_AUTH}"
You can also fetch by URL path, which is useful when routing on your frontend: 
curl -X GET \
  "https://cds.thepublive.com/publisher/${PUBLIVE_PUBLISHER_ID}/post/?url=/news/my-first-article-12345" \
  -H "Authorization: Basic ${PUBLIVE_AUTH}"

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Step 4: Fetch site configuration

The CDS serves your site’s navigation structure so your frontend stays in sync with editorial changes: 
curl -X GET \
  "https://cds.thepublive.com/publisher/${PUBLIVE_PUBLISHER_ID}/navbar/" \
  -H "Authorization: Basic ${PUBLIVE_AUTH}"

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Step 5: Filter content

The CDS supports advanced filtering with field lookups. Append filter parameters to any listing endpoint: 
# Posts in a specific category
curl "https://cds.thepublive.com/publisher/${PUBLIVE_PUBLISHER_ID}/posts/?primary_category__slug__eq=news"

# Posts by a specific author
curl "https://cds.thepublive.com/publisher/${PUBLIVE_PUBLISHER_ID}/posts/?contributors__slug__eq=jane-doe"

# Posts with a specific tag
curl "https://cds.thepublive.com/publisher/${PUBLIVE_PUBLISHER_ID}/posts/?tags__slug__eq=breaking"
Each request should include your Authorization header.
CDS responses include Cache-Tags headers (e.g. PP.12345, CAT.1) that you can pass to your CDN for precise cache invalidation when content changes.

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What’s next?

Manage Content (CMS)

Create, update, and publish content via the CMS API

Framework Guides

Integrate with Next.js, React, Vue, or Angular

CDS API Reference

Full endpoint reference for all CDS routes

JavaScript SDK

Use the official SDK instead of raw HTTP calls