DK Developer Manual

Welcome to the official developer documentation for the **DK Headless API for WordPress**. DK Headless API works as a high-performance system-decoupling framework and middleware layer built directly into WordPress.

By serving as an intercept gateway between incoming client HTTP requests and the internal WordPress REST API Controller, DK Headless API completely eliminates the payload bloat of default WordPress JSON responses. It allows you to expose secure, pruned, whitelisted endpoints with custom URL namespaces, static Next.js cache bypass parameters, and custom CORS rules.

Before deploying the DK Headless API plugin, please verify that your hosting server environment matches the following core requirements:

You can install DK Headless API on your WordPress site using either manual upload panel or terminal-based dependency management via Composer.

composer require digitizedkosmos/dk-headless-api
wp plugin activate dk-headless-api

By default, all WordPress REST endpoints are exposed globally under the standard `/wp-json/wp/v2/` namespace path. This leaves your backend structure vulnerable to automated scanners and aggressive bots.

With DK Headless API, you can override this globally by defining a custom route prefix (e.g. `gateway-api/v1`). The plugin will intercept requests, route queries, and returns standard 404 responses on default paths.

// Next.js project path environment variable setup
// file: .env.local
NEXT_PUBLIC_WORDPRESS_API_URL="https://backend.yoursite.com/wp-json/secure-gateway/v2"

Security-wise, default WordPress leaves the Access-Control-Allow-Origin wildcard header set to open (*), allowing browsers on any page to fetch data from your API.

DK Headless API injects a strict CORS intercept validation. The backend will inspect the HTTP request origin header:

Standard WordPress REST responses carry an excessive amount of nested metadata link schemas (such as the standard `_links` object, `yoast_head` HTML blogs, pingback headers, etc.). DK Headless API features native field pruning parameters.

All routes are registered under the custom API namespace. The default namespace is /wp-json/dk/v1/. Endpoint responses are pruned, clean, and structured to optimize payload weight.

Retrieve header, footer, or sidebar navigation menus dynamically built inside WordPress.

{
  "success": true,
  "data": [
    {
      "id": 12,
      "name": "Header Navigation",
      "slug": "header-navigation",
      "count": 3,
      "items": [
        {
          "id": 105,
          "title": "Home",
          "url": "https://yourfrontend.com/",
          "classes": "nav-item"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

To build high-performance static pages with automatic revalidation, integrate the custom DK Headless API endpoints in your Next.js Server Components.

// file: lib/dk-client.ts
export interface DKPost {
  id: number;
  title: { rendered: string };
  content: { rendered: string };
  slug: string;
}

export async function getDKPosts(): Promise<DKPost[]> {
  const endpoint = `${process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_WORDPRESS_API_URL}/posts`;
  
  const response = await fetch(endpoint, {
    method: "GET",
    headers: {
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
    next: { 
      revalidate: 3600, // Regenerate static build cache hourly
      tags: ["posts-feed"] 
    }
  });

  if (!response.ok) {
    throw new Error("Failed to fetch posts from DK Headless API for WordPress");
  }

  return response.json();
}

If you need to fetch draft posts, private WooCommerce user profiles, or process comments securely, you can lock your routes behind JWT Token Authorization.

DK Pro verifies tokens in the HTTP authorization headers using RSA256 signature keys. If the token is invalid or expired, the request is instantly thrown out without database hits.

// Fetching authenticated user profile in Next.js Server Action
export async function getSecureProfile(jwtToken: string) {
  const res = await fetch('https://wp.yoursite.com/wp-json/secure-gateway/v2/users/me', {
    headers: {
      'Authorization': `Bearer ${jwtToken}`
    }
  });
  return res.json();
}

We are actively expanding the features of the DK Headless API for WordPress plugin. Below are the key upcoming features planned in our public development backlog:

How does DK Headless API for WordPress compare against other architectural choices? Toggle the tabs below to analyze features, latency and configurations side-by-side.

Having troubles configuring DK Headless API? Below are common error states and their typical resolutions: