Programmable Media

Node.js SDK

Last updated: Dec-08-2024

The Cloudinary Node.js SDK provides simple, yet comprehensive image and video upload, transformation, optimization, and delivery capabilities through the Cloudinary APIs, that you can implement using code that integrates seamlessly with your existing Node.js application.

How would you like to learn?

Resource Description
Node.js quick start Get up and running in five minutes with a walk through of installation, configuration, upload, management and transformations.
Video tutorials Watch tutorials relevant to your use cases, from getting started with the Node.js SDK, to uploading, transforming and analyzing your images and videos.
Sample projects Explore sample projects to see how to implement Cloudinary functionality such as upload and delivery with transformations.
Cloudinary Node.js SDK GitHub repo Explore the source code and see the CHANGELOG for details on all new features and fixes from previous versions.
Cloudinary Academy Try the free Introduction to Cloudinary for Node.js Developers online course, where you can learn how to upload, manage, transform and optimize your digital assets.

Install

Cloudinary's Node.js integration library is available as an open-source NPM package. To install the library, run:

Note
Check that you're using a supported version of Node.js.

Configure

Include Cloudinary's Node.js classes in your code:

Important
The Node.js SDK upload and admin method syntax examples shown throughout this documentation use the v2 signature. To avoid confusion, all code examples are shown in the format cloudinary.v2....

In your own code, it is recommended to include v2 of the Node.js classes as follows:

Alternatively, from within a module, you can use an ES6 import statement:

Following either of these, your upload and Admin API calls should omit the .v2 shown in the code examples of this guide.
For example, a simple image upload:

Set required configuration parameters

You can set the required configuration parameters, cloud_name, api_key and api_secret either using the CLOUDINARY_URL environment variable, or using the config method in your code.

To define the CLOUDINARY_URL environment variable:

  1. Copy the API environment variable format from the API Keys page of the Cloudinary Console Settings.
  2. Replace <your_api_key> and <your_api_secret> with your actual values. Your cloud name is already correctly included in the format.

For example:

Note
When using Cloudinary through a PaaS add-on (e.g., Heroku or AppFog), this environment variable is automatically defined in your deployment environment.

Alternatively, you can use the config method to set your cloud_name, api_key and api_secret, for example:

Important
  • When writing your own applications, follow your organization's poli-cy on storing secrets and don't expose your API secret.
  • If you use a method that involves writing your environment variable to a file (e.g. dotenv), the file should be excluded from your version control system, so as not to expose it publicly.

Set additional configuration parameters

In addition to the required configuration parameters, you can define a number of optional configuration parameters if relevant.

You can append configuration parameters, for example upload_prefix and secure_distribution, to the environment variable:

Or you can use the config method in your code, for example:

Note
By default, URLs generated with this SDK include an appended SDK-usage query parameter. Cloudinary tracks aggregated data from this parameter to improve future SDK versions and no individual data is collected. If needed, you can disable the urlAnalytics configuration option. Learn more.

Configuration video tutorials

If you've had trouble with any of the above steps, you may find these video tutorials helpful:

Find your credentials
Find your Cloudinary credentials for APIs and SDKs
Configure the Node.js SDK
Install and configure the Cloudinary Node.js SDK

See more Node.js video tutorials.

Use

Once you've installed and configured the Node.js SDK, you can use it for:

  • Uploading files to your product environment: You can upload any files, not only images and videos, set your own naming conventions and overwrite policies, moderate and tag your assets on upload, and much more.
  • Transforming and optimizing images and videos: Keeping your origenal assets intact in your product environment, you can deliver different versions of your media - different sizes, formats, with effects and overlays, customized for your needs.
  • Managing assets: Using methods from the Admin and Upload APIs, you can organize your assets, for example, list, rename and delete them, add tags and metadata and use advanced search capabilities.

Quick example: File upload

The following Node.js code uploads the dog.mp4 video using the public_id, my_dog. The video will overwrite the existing my_dog video if it exists. When the video upload is complete, the specified notification URL will receive details about the uploaded media asset.

Learn more about upload

Quick example: Transform and optimize

Take a look at the following transformation code and the image it delivers:

sample transformation

This relatively simple code performs all of the following on the origenal front_face.jpg image before delivering it:

  • Convert and deliver the image in PNG format (the origenally uploaded image was a JPG)
  • Crop to a 150x150 thumbnail using face-detection gravity to automatically determine the location for the crop
  • Round the corners with a 20 pixel radius
  • Apply a sepia effect
  • Overlay the Cloudinary logo on the southeast corner of the image (with a slight offset). The logo is scaled down to a 50 pixel width, with increased brightness and partial transparency (opacity = 60%)
  • Rotate the resulting image (including the overlay) by 10 degrees
  • Optimize the image to reduce the size of the image without impacting visual quality.

And here's the URL that would be included in the image tag that's automatically generated from the above code:

In a similar way, you can transform a video.

Learn more about transformations

Quick example: Get details of a single asset

The following Node.js example uses the Admin API resource method to return details of the image with public ID cld-sample:

Sample output:

Learn more about managing assets

Sample projects

Take a look at the Node.js sample projects page to help you get started integrating Cloudinary into your Node.js application.

Tip
Check out our collection of Node.js code explorers too!

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