@canva/intents

A Canva Developers SDK package for building apps inside Canva. Provides types and utilities for working with App Intents.

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Installation
• Usage
• Related packages
• Contributing
• License

Introduction

@canva/intents is an npm package for building apps inside Canva with the Canva Developers SDK. It provides intent-specific types and helpers that allow apps to integrate with specific surfaces within the Canva editor — such as the data connector panel or the design editor.

An "intent" represents a specific user workflow an app can support. For example:

• Users can select and import data from an app which implements the Data Connector intent.
• An app is able to present interactive and creative tooling alongside the Canva design surface by implementing the Design Editor intent.
• Users can publish their Canva designs directly to external platforms.

The @canva/intents package encompasses all available intents, exporting each intent's type information and prepare function, grouped by domain. This allows your app to prepare one or more intents while keeping each intent's implementation modular and type-safe.

Currently supported intents:

• Data Connector
• Design Editor
• Content Publisher

New intents will be added to this package in the future.

Note: To get up and running with the Canva Developers SDK, check out the quick start guide.

Installation

npm install @canva/intents

Usage

Preparing an intent

Each intent type has a corresponding prepare function in the @canva/intents package. You can implement any intent in your app code by calling the appropriate prepare function with the particular parameters it requires.

Data Connector example

Here’s a full example of preparing a data_connector intent, which allows users to import tabular data from an app:

import { createRoot } from 'react-dom/client';
import { AppUiProvider } from '@canva/app-ui-kit';
import { prepareDataConnector } from '@canva/intents/data';
import { DataSelectionUI } from './data_selection_ui';
import { fetchData } from './fetch_data';

prepareDataConnector({
  getDataTable: async (request) => {
    try {
      const dataTable = await fetchData(request); // your data fetching logic here
      return {
        status: 'completed',
        dataTable,
      };
    } catch {
      return {
        status: 'app_error',
        message: 'Failed to fetch data',
      };
    }
  },

  renderSelectionUi: (request) => {
    const root = createRoot(document.getElementById('root') as Element);
    root.render(
      <AppUiProvider>
        <DataSelectionUI {...request} />
      </AppUiProvider>
    );
  },
});

Design Editor example

import { prepareDesignEditor } from '@canva/intents/design';

prepareDesignEditor({
  render() {
    // render logic
  },
});

Content Publisher example

import { prepareContentPublisher } from "@canva/intents/content";

prepareContentPublisher({
  renderSettingsUi: ({
    updatePublishSettings,
    registerOnContextChange,
  }) => {
    root.render(
      <AppUiProvider>
        <SettingUi
          updatePublishSettings={updatePublishSettings}
          registerOnContextChange={registerOnContextChange}
        />
      </AppUiProvider>,
    );
  },

  renderPreviewUi: ({ registerOnPreviewChange }) => {
    root.render(
      <AppUiProvider>
        <PreviewUi registerOnPreviewChange={registerOnPreviewChange} />
      </AppUiProvider>,
    );
  },

  getPublishConfiguration: async () => {
    return {
      status: "completed",
      outputTypes: [
        {
          id: "post",
          displayName: "Post",
          mediaSlots: [
            {
              id: "media",
              displayName: "Media",
              fileCount: { exact: 1 },
              accepts: {
                image: {
                  format: "png",
                },
              },
            },
          ],
        },
      ],
    };
  },

  publishContent: async (request: PublishContentRequest) => {
    // logic to upload media to your platform here
    return {
      status: "completed",
      externalId: "1234567890",
      externalUrl: "https://example.com/posts/1234567890",
    };
  },
});

Related packages

Apps inside Canva are built with the following Canva Developers SDK packages:

• @canva/app-ui-kit - React-based component library for creating apps that mimic the look and feel of Canva.
• @canva/asset - Provides methods for working with assets, such as image and video files.
• @canva/design - Provides methods for interacting with the user's design, such as creating elements.
• @canva/error - Provides a CanvaError class for handling errors.
• @canva/platform - Provides utility methods, such as a method for opening external links.
• @canva/user - Provides methods for accessing user data and authenticating users.

Contributing

We're actively developing this package but are not currently accepting third-party contributions. If you'd like to request any changes or additions to the package, submit a feature request via the Canva Developers Community.

License

See the LICENSE.md file.