Node.js SDK

Overview

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

This guide relates to the latest released version of the Cloudinary Node.js library.

For details on all new features and fixes from previous versions, see the CHANGELOG.

On this page:

Quick example: Transformations

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

Node.js
Node.js:
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cloudinary.image("front_face.png", {secure: true, transformation: [
  {width: 150, height: 150, gravity: "face", crop: "thumb"},
  {radius: 20},
  {effect: "sepia"},
  {overlay: "cloudinary_icon", gravity: "south_east", x: 5, y: 5, width: 50, opacity: 60, effect: "brightness:200"},
  {angle: 10}
  ]})
sample transformation

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

  • 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
  • Convert and deliver the image in PNG format (the originally uploaded image was a JPG)

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

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https://res.cloudinary.com/demo/image/upload/c_thumb,g_face,h_150,w_150/r_20/e_sepia/l_cloudinary_icon,g_south_east,x_5,y_5,w_50,o_60,e_brightness:200/a_10/front_face.png

Quick example: File upload

The following Node.js code uploads the dog.mp4 video to the specified account sub-folder 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.

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cloudinary.v2.uploader.upload("dog.mp4", 
  {resource_type: "video", public_id: "my_folder/my_sub_folder/my_dog",
  overwrite: true, notification_url: "https://mysite.example.com/notify_endpoint"},
  function(error, result) {console.log(result, error)});

Node.js SDK features

  • Build URLs for image and video manipulations
  • Node.js helper methods for embedding and transforming images
  • API wrappers: file upload, administration, sprite generation and more
  • Server-side file upload + direct unsigned file upload from the browser using the jQuery plugin
  • TypeScript support. View the TypeScript declaration file.

Installation and setup

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

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npm install cloudinary

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

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var cloudinary = require('cloudinary');

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:

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var cloudinary = require('cloudinary').v2;

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

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cloudinary.uploader.upload("my_image.jpg", function(error, result) {console.log(result, error)});

Configuration

To use the Cloudinary Node.js SDK, you have to configure at least your cloud_name. Your api_key and api_secret are also needed for secure API calls to Cloudinary (e.g., image and video uploads). You can find your account-specific configuration credentials in the Dashboard page of the account console.

Setting the configuration parameters can be done either programmatically in each call to a Cloudinary method or you can set them globally using either an environment variable or the config method. You can optionally configure the required cloud_name, api_key, and api_secret by defining the CLOUDINARY_URL environment variable. The configuration URL is available in the Dashboard page of the account console. When using Cloudinary through a PaaS add-on (e.g., Heroku), this environment variable is automatically defined in your deployment environment. For example:

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CLOUDINARY_URL=cloudinary://my_key:my_secret@my_cloud_name

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

Here's an example of setting configuration parameters globally in your Node application:

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cloudinary.config({ 
  cloud_name: 'sample', 
  api_key: '874837483274837', 
  api_secret: 'a676b67565c6767a6767d6767f676fe1' 
});

Node.js capitalization and data type guidelines

When using the Node.js SDK, keep these guidelines in mind:

  • Parameter names: snake_case. For example: public_id
  • Classes: PascalCase. For example: PreloadedFile
  • Methods: snake_case. For example: image_upload_tag
  • Pass parameter data as: Object

Sample projects

For additional useful code samples and to learn how to integrate Cloudinary with your Node.js applications, take a look at our Sample Projects.

  • Basic Node.js sample: Uploading local and remote images to Cloudinary and generating various transformation URLs.
  • Node.js Photo Album: A fully working web application that allows you to upload photos, maintain a database with references, list images with their metadata, and display them using various cloud-based transformations. Image uploading is performed both from the server side and directly from the browser using a jQuery plugin.

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