Base URL

In the Developer Portal, extensions have a Base URL field. The presence of this field indicates that you must provide Canva with the URL of a web server.

Throughout the lifecycle of the extension, Canva:

• Sends HTTP requests to the web server.
• Uses the responses to determine the extension's behavior.

Unlike some APIs that you may be familiar with—for example, Stripe's Webhooks API⁠(opens in a new tab or window)—Canva doesn't send all requests to a single endpoint.

Instead, when sending requests, Canva appends a path to the Base URL. (This is why the field is called Base URL and not Endpoint URL.)

The appended path identifies:

• The purpose of the request.
• The structure of the request that Canva sends.
• The structure of the response that Canva expects to receive.

For example, if the Base URL of a publish extension is example.com, Canva may send requests to the following endpoints:

• example.com/publish/resources/find
• example.com/publish/resources/get
• example.com/publish/resources/upload

For each of these endpoints, Canva sends a request that conforms to a schema and expects the responses to conform to a schema of their own.

The documentation for each extension point explains:

• The endpoints an extension needs to support. (This can change depending on the extension's configuration.)
• The structure of the requests that Canva sends to an extension.
• The structure of the responses that an extension must send back to Canva.

You can find this documentation in the sidebar, under the Extension points heading.

You can use any programming language, framework, or architecture to set up a Base URL, but for Canva to send requests and receive responses, the server must be available via public URL (that is, not localhost).

For examples of how to set up a Base URL, see the following guides:

• Set up a Base URL (with Glitch)
• Set up a Base URL (with ngrok)