Get Started with Android Utils Library

Last updated September 8, 2026

This guide will help you get started with Contentstack Android Utils SDK to build apps powered by Contentstack.

Prerequisites

The latest version of Android Studio
JDK - 8 or later
Android SDK

SDK Installation and Setup

To set up the Utils SDK in your Android project, add the following dependency to your build.gradle file:

implementation 'com.contentstack.sdk:utils:latest'

If you are using the Contentstack Android SDK, then the Utils SDK is already imported into your project. In this case, the latest version must be used as shown:

implementation 'com.contentstack.sdk:android:latest'

Usage

Let’s learn how you can use Utils SDK to render embedded items.

Create Render Option:

To render embedded items on the front-end, use the renderContents function, and define the UI elements you want to show in the front-end of your app, as shown in the example code below:

package com.contentstack.utils;

import com.contentstack.utils.helper.Metadata;
import com.contentstack.utils.interfaces.NodeCallback;
import com.contentstack.utils.interfaces.Option;
import com.contentstack.utils.node.MarkType;
import org.json.JSONObject;

public class DefaultOptionClass implements Option {

    @Override
    public String renderOptions(JSONObject embeddedObject, Metadata metadata) {
        switch (metadata.getStyleType()) {
            case BLOCK:
                return "<p>" + embeddedObject.getString("title") + "</p><span>" +
                        embeddedObject.getString("multi") + "</span>";
            case INLINE:
                return "<p>" + embeddedObject.getString("title") + "</p><span>" +
                        embeddedObject.getString("line") + "</span>";
            case LINK:
                return "<p>" + embeddedObject.getString("title") + "</p><span>" +
                        embeddedObject.getString("key") + "</span>";
            case DISPLAY:
                return "<p>" + embeddedObject.getString("someTitle") + "</p><span>" +
                        embeddedObject.getString("multi") + "</span>";
            default:
                return null;
        }
    }

    @Override
    public String renderMark(MarkType markType, String renderText) {
        if (markType == MarkType.BOLD) {
            return "<b>" + renderText + "</b>";
        }
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public String renderNode(String nodeType, JSONObject nodeObject, NodeCallback callback) {
        if (nodeType.equalsIgnoreCase("paragraph")) {
            String children = callback.renderChildren(nodeObject.optJSONArray("children"));
            return "<p class='class-id'>" + children + "</p>";
        }

        return null;
    }
}

Basic Queries

Contentstack Utils SDK lets you interact with the Content Delivery APIs and retrieve embedded items from the RTE field of an entry.

Fetch Embedded Item(s) from a Single Entry

To get an embedded item of a single entry, you need to provide the stack API key, environment name, delivery token, content type’s UID, and entry’s UID. Then, use the includeEmbeddedItems function as shown below:

import Contentstack
Stack stack = Contentstack.stack(context, "apiKey", "deliveryToken", "environment_name");

ContentType contentType = stack.contentType("content_type_uid");
Entry entry = contentType.entry("entry_uid");
entry.includeEmbeddedItems();
entry.fetch(new EntryResultCallBack() {
@Override
public void onCompletion(ResponseType responseType, Error error) {
    if (error == null) {
         String[] keyPath = {
            "rich_text_editor", "global_rich_multiple.group.rich_text_editor"
            };
            JSONObject jsonObject = entry.toJSON();
            Utils.render(jsonObject, keyPath, new Option());
    } else {
         [Error block] //handle your error
    }}
 });

Fetch Embedded Item(s) from Multiple Entries

To get embedded items from multiple entries, you need to provide the stack API key, environment name, delivery token, and content type’s UID.

import Contentstack
Stack stack = Contentstack.stack(context, "apiKey", "deliveryToken", "environment_name");

Query query = stack.contentType("content_type_uid").query();
query.includeEmbeddedItems();
query.find(new QueryResultsCallBack() {
@Override
publicvoidonCompletion(ResponseType responseType, QueryResult queryResult, Error error) {
    if(error == null){
       String[] keyPath = {
            "rich_text_editor", "global_rich_multiple.group.rich_text_editor"
            };
            for (Entry entry : entries) {
                JSONObject jsonObject = entry.toJSON();
                Utils.render(jsonObject, keyPath, new Option());
                }
    }else{
       [Error block] //handle your error
    }}});

Render JSON RTE Contents

To get multiple entries, you need to provide the stack API key, environment name, delivery token, content type and entry UID. Then, use the Contentstack.Utils.jsonToHTML function as shown below:

import Contentstack
Stack stack = Contentstack.stack("apiKey", "deliveryToken", "environment_name");
Query query = stack.contentType("content_type_uid").query();
query.includeEmbeddedItems(); // include embedded items
query.find(new QueryResultsCallBack() {
    @Override
    public void onCompletion(ResponseType responseType, QueryResult queryResult, Error error) {
        if (error == null) {
            List<Entry> entries = queryresult.getResultObjects();
            String[] keyPath = {
            "rte_fieldUid", "group.rteFieldUID"
            };
            for (Entry entry : entries) {
                JSONObject jsonObject = entry.toJSON();
                Utils.jsonToHTML(jsonObject, keyPath, new Option());
            }
        }}
});

Resolve Embedded Item Metadata

The SDK resolves embedded entry and asset metadata from the _embedded_items object in the API response and exposes the resolved values at node.attrs._resolved. Read resolved values from there so that your rendered output reflects the current state of the embedded item. The legacy node.attrs['asset-link'] property, and the equivalent properties for other node types, remain readable as a soft-deprecated fallback.

Note The includeEmbeddedItems() method retrieves first-level embedded items only. To retrieve embedded items that are nested inside other embedded items, request the entry directly through the Content Delivery API with include_embedded_items[]=RECURSIVE.

Additional Resources

Refer to Embed Entries or Assets to understand how embedded item data is stored and resolved.
Refer to CDA | Entries for the include_embedded_items[] and embedded_items_depth parameter reference.