Content Type Plugin

A newer version of this plugin is available. See Content Type Plugin (v2) for the current flag syntax before installing v1.

The content type plugin provides commands to inspect, compare, and visualize content types in a stack directly from the CLI. Use it to:

• Audit schema changes before deploying to production.
• Compare content models across versions or stacks.
• Generate visual documentation of your content architecture as a Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) or DOT (Graphviz DOT graph description language) diagram.

These commands only read your stack's content types. They don't write, update, or delete any content in your stack.

• Contentstack CLI v1 installed. See Contentstack CLI installation:
• Plugin installed: See Installation.
• Authentication: Either a saved management token alias or a stack API key. See Authentication. If using a management token, its role must grant Content Type: Read permission.
• Region configured, if your stack is not in North America. Requests default to the North America endpoint, so set your region if your stack is hosted elsewhere. See Configure Regions in the CLI:

1. Install the plugin:
   1

   csdx plugins:install contentstack-cli-content-type

2. Verify the plugin is installed:
   1

   csdx plugins

   You should see contentstack-cli-content-type in the list.

List all content types in a stack, ordered by title or last modified date.

Syntax

csdx content-type:list [FLAGS]

Flags

Note: Pass either --stack-api-key or --alias, not both. See Authentication for the full enforcement table.

Output

Displays a table of all content types with their title, UID, and last modified date.

Examples

List all content types, sorted by title:

csdx content-type:list -a my-token-alias

List sorted by last modified:

csdx content-type:list -a my-token-alias --order modified

Using stack API key directly:

csdx content-type:list -k <stack-api-key>

Display the full schema details of a specific content type, including all fields, their types, and reference paths.

Syntax

csdx content-type:details --content-type <uid> [FLAGS]

Flags

Output

A structured table of the content type schema with columns for field title, UID, data type, and path (dot-notation path through nested structures).

Use --no-path to hide the path column for a more compact view.

Examples

View full details for a content type:

csdx content-type:details -a my-token-alias --content-type home_page

Hide the path column:

csdx content-type:details -a my-token-alias --content-type home_page --no-path

Using stack API key:

csdx content-type:details -k <stack-api-key> --content-type blog_post

Display the recent audit log of changes made to a specific content type: who changed it, when, and what changed.

Syntax

csdx content-type:audit --content-type <uid> [FLAGS]

Flags

Output

A table of audit log entries showing the action, the user who made the change, and the timestamp.

Examples

View audit log for a content type:

csdx content-type:audit -a my-token-alias --content-type home_page

Using stack API key:

csdx content-type:audit -k <stack-api-key> --content-type blog_post

Compare two versions of the same content type within a stack. Shows fields added, removed, or modified between versions.

Syntax

csdx content-type:compare --content-type <uid> [FLAGS]

Flags

Note: Provide --left and --right together, or omit both and let the command automatically compare the latest version against the previous version.

Output

A diff table showing fields that were added, removed, or changed between the two versions.

Examples

Compare the two most recent versions (automatic):

csdx content-type:compare -a my-token-alias --content-type home_page

Compare specific versions:

csdx content-type:compare -a my-token-alias --content-type home_page --left 5 --right 4

Using stack API key:

csdx content-type:compare -k <stack-api-key> --content-type blog_post --left 3 --right 2

Compare the same content type across two different stacks, for example to validate that a staging schema matches production.

Syntax

csdx content-type:compare-remote --origin-stack <key> --remote-stack <key> --content-type <uid>

Flags

Note: Pass two different stack API keys for --origin-stack and --remote-stack. Passing the same key for both produces an empty diff.

Output

A diff table showing field-level differences between the same content type on two stacks.

Examples

# Compare home_page across staging and production stacks
csdx content-type:compare-remote \
  --origin-stack <origin-stack-api-key> \
  --remote-stack <remote-stack-api-key> \
  --content-type home_page

Generate a visual diagram of all content types in a stack, including references and relationships between them. Outputs an SVG or Graphviz DOT file.

Syntax

csdx content-type:diagram --output <path> [FLAGS]

Flags

Output

Creates a file at the specified --output path. The file is either:

• SVG (default): A rendered visual graph, viewable in any browser or SVG viewer.
• DOT: A file in the DOT language, read by Graphviz, an open-source graph-visualization tool. Render it manually with dot -Tpng content-model.dot -o content-model.png.

The CLI always prints an absolute path here, regardless of whether you pass --output a relative or absolute path. On success, it prints something like:

Created Graph: /Users/you/project/content-model.svg

Examples

Generate an SVG diagram (portrait, default):

csdx content-type:diagram -a my-token-alias --output ./content-model.svg

Generate in landscape orientation:

csdx content-type:diagram -a my-token-alias --output ./content-model.svg --direction landscape

Generate a DOT file for further processing:

csdx content-type:diagram -a my-token-alias --output ./content-model.dot --type dot

Using stack API key:

csdx content-type:diagram -k <stack-api-key> --output ./diagram.svg

v1's short flags and the --stack / --token-alias long flags are deprecated in favor of the long-form flags used in v2. See Upgrading from v1 for the full old-to-new flag mapping.

When you use a deprecated flag, the CLI prints a deprecation warning pointing to the replacement.

Most commands accept a management token alias or a stack API key. Whether --stack-api-key and --alias are mutually exclusive depends on the command. Pass only one flag regardless.

Save a management token once and reference it by alias:

csdx auth:tokens:add -a my-token-alias -k <stack-api-key> --management --token <management-token>

Then use -a my-token-alias in commands that accept --alias: list, details, audit, compare, diagram.

Pass the stack API key directly:

csdx content-type:list -k <stack-api-key>

Exception (content-type:compare-remote): This command authenticates differently. Pass both stack API keys directly via --origin-stack and --remote-stack instead of --alias or --stack-api-key.

Who changed blog_post and when:

csdx content-type:audit -a my-token-alias --content-type blog_post

What exactly changed in the last update:

csdx content-type:compare -a my-token-alias --content-type blog_post

csdx content-type:compare-remote \
  --origin-stack <staging-api-key> \
  --remote-stack <production-api-key> \
  --content-type home_page

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail

# Generate a landscape diagram and open it
csdx content-type:diagram \
  -a production-token \
  --output ./docs/content-model.svg \
  --direction landscape

open ./docs/content-model.svg

set -euo pipefail stops the script if content-type:diagram fails, so open never runs against a diagram that was not created.

Root Causes: The stack API key or management token alias is incorrect, or the token lacks read permissions.

Resolution:

1. Verify the alias is saved: csdx auth:tokens
2. Confirm the token has Content Type: Read permission in the Contentstack UI.
3. Check your region is correctly configured: csdx config:get:region

See Authentication for how the two credential methods work and which commands enforce them.

Root Cause: --origin-stack and --remote-stack are identical.

Resolution: Provide two different stack API keys. See content-type:compare-remote for the full flag reference.

Root Causes:

• --left and --right are set to the same version number.
• You omitted both flags and the content type has only one version. The command defaults to comparing version 1 against itself and prints this warning.

Resolution:

• If two or more versions exist, use different --left and --right values. Check the version history via content-type:audit first.
• If only one version exists, there is nothing to compare yet. Save a change to the content type to create a second version first.

See content-type:compare and content-type:audit.

Root Causes:

• You lack write permission on the resolved output path
• The --output contains characters your OS's filesystem doesn't allow.

Resolution:

1. Check write permissions on the target directory. The CLI creates missing parent directories automatically.
2. Use an absolute path if you want full control over where the file lands.
3. Remove any characters your OS doesn't allow in file paths.

See content-type:diagram for the full flag and output reference.

Root Cause: The install did not complete, or the CLI is not listing the installed plugin.

Resolution: Reinstall following Installation. If contentstack-cli-content-type still does not appear in csdx plugins after a clean reinstall, the issue is in your local npm/CLI environment rather than the plugin itself.

• These commands compare and diagram schema only. They do not diff entry-level content or data records.
• content-type:diagram writes a local SVG or DOT file. It is never uploaded or synced back to the stack.
• content-type:compare needs at least two saved versions of a content type. With only one version, it compares the version against itself and returns an empty diff. See content-type:compare for the single-version case.

• Regex Validate Plugin (v1): scan your content types and global fields for regex patterns vulnerable to catastrophic backtracking (a regex performance bug that can make matching hang).
• Audit Plugin: a related Contentstack plugin for reviewing audit log activity across your stack.
• CLI Authentication: Add Management Token: create and save the management token alias these commands use.
• Configure Regions in the CLI: set your region if your stack is not in North America.
• About Content Types: conceptual background on how content types and their fields are structured.