How to publish documents via Sanity API/JavaScript client?
Yes, you can absolutely perform a "publish" through the API/JavaScript client! In Sanity, publishing is essentially copying a draft document to its published version by manipulating the document IDs.
How Publishing Works in Sanity
Sanity uses a draft/publish system where:
- Draft documents have IDs prefixed with
drafts.(e.g.,drafts.my-document-id) - Published documents have the same ID without the prefix (e.g.,
my-document-id)
Publishing via the API
To publish a document programmatically using the JavaScript client, you can use the createOrReplace mutation. Here's how:
import {createClient} from '@sanity/client'
const client = createClient({
projectId: 'your-project-id',
dataset: 'your-dataset',
token: 'your-token-with-write-access',
apiVersion: '2025-01-01',
useCdn: false
})
// Publish a single document
async function publishDocument(documentId) {
// Fetch the draft
const draft = await client.getDocument(`drafts.${documentId}`)
if (!draft) {
throw new Error('Draft not found')
}
// Remove the drafts. prefix from _id
const {_id, ...documentWithoutId} = draft
// Create or replace the published version
return client.createOrReplace({
...documentWithoutId,
_id: documentId,
_type: draft._type
})
}Publishing All Drafts
For your "publish all drafts" button, you could do something like this:
async function publishAllDrafts() {
// Query all draft documents
const drafts = await client.fetch(
`*[_id in path("drafts.**")]`
)
// Create a transaction to publish them all
const transaction = client.transaction()
drafts.forEach(draft => {
const publishedId = draft._id.replace('drafts.', '')
const {_id, ...doc} = draft
transaction.createOrReplace({
...doc,
_id: publishedId
})
})
return transaction.commit()
}Important Considerations
- Authentication: You'll need a token with write permissions to publish documents
- Validation: The API doesn't enforce Studio-defined schema rules, so you may want to validate documents before publishing
- Transactions: Using transactions ensures atomic operations when publishing multiple documents
- References: Make sure any references in your documents point to published documents (or use weak references if referencing drafts)
This approach gives you full programmatic control over publishing, which is perfect for building custom workflows, scheduled publishing, or bulk operations like your "publish all drafts" button!
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