Acquia Source

Acquia Source

Acquia Source ("Source powered by Drupal CMS") is a managed SaaS CMS wrapping Drupal CMS 11+ and the Drupal Canvas page builder (drupal.org/project/canvas, formerly Experience Builder). You don't get server/SSH access or arbitrary contrib — you interact through its JSON:API, its MCP server, the Canvas Page API, and the @drupal-canvas CLI. Admin/login at https://source.acquia.com.

Acquia Source is a SaaS product, not Acquia Cloud Platform. The acli CLI manages Cloud Platform, not Source sites — don't reach for it here. Source is driven through the web admin + the APIs below.

Site identity & credentials

• CMS URL looks like https://<uuid>.cms.acquia.site (auto-generated at site creation; a custom domain can be mapped later). This base URL is the JSON:API host and the OAuth host.
• API clients (OAuth2 client_id/secret) are created in the admin UI under API → API clients → Add API client.
• The @drupal-canvas CLI reads everything from a local .env (never committed):

  CANVAS_SITE_URL=https://<uuid>.cms.acquia.site
  CANVAS_CLIENT_ID=<client_id>
  CANVAS_CLIENT_SECRET=<client_secret>
  CANVAS_JSONAPI_PREFIX=api        # Source serves JSON:API under /api, not the Drupal default /jsonapi
  # CANVAS_ACCESS_TOKEN=<token>    # optional: a pre-issued Bearer token instead of client credentials
  

Authentication (OAuth2 via simple_oauth)

• Token endpoint: POST https://<site>/oauth/token, Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded.
• Grants: Authorization Code (user-present), Client Credentials (server/agent — use this for automation), Refresh Token.
• Request header on API calls: Authorization: Bearer <access_token>.
• Scopes: content scopes like content:read / content:write (examples — the full list isn't published); the Canvas CLI needs canvas:asset_library and canvas:js_component. Enable Client Credentials + add those scopes when creating the API client.

Client-credentials token, by hand:

curl -s -X POST "$CANVAS_SITE_URL/oauth/token" \
  -d grant_type=client_credentials \
  -d client_id="$CANVAS_CLIENT_ID" \
  -d client_secret="$CANVAS_CLIENT_SECRET" \
  -d scope="canvas:asset_library canvas:js_component" | jq -r .access_token

JSON:API

• Base path is /api on Source (Drupal's default /jsonapi is overridden — set CANVAS_JSONAPI_PREFIX=api). So a collection is https://<site>/api/<entity_type>/<bundle> (e.g. /api/node/article).
• Resource types are standard Drupal {entity_type}--{bundle} (node--article, media--image, taxonomy_term--tags, …). No Source-proprietary prefix confirmed.
• The admin UI has a JSON:API Query Builder (API → JSON:API Query Builder) that generates live queries + code, and per-site OpenAPI documentation (API → OpenAPI documentation). Use those to discover exact bundles/fields for a given site.

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  "$CANVAS_SITE_URL/api/node/article?page[limit]=5" | jq '.data[].attributes.title'

MCP server (connect an AI agent)

Acquia Source ships an MCP server (HTTP transport, OAuth2 with dynamic client registration). It's experimental and per-site — enable it first.

1. Enable: admin UI → Configurations → Experimental features → MCP Server toggle.
2. Get the URL: copy the site's MCP URL from MCP Client Configuration in the Source admin (the endpoint URL is provisioned per site; there's no fixed public path to hardcode).
3. Register in Claude Code:

   claude mcp add acquia-source-mcp <ACQUIA_SOURCE_SITE_MCP_URL>
   

   Then run /mcp, select acquia-source-mcp, and click Authenticate to complete the OAuth flow (dynamic client registration — no manual client_id needed).

What it exposes (read-only resources + write tools, via drupal:// and canvas:// URIs):

• Content Management — content types, media types, vocabularies, text formats; create/update nodes, media, taxonomy terms.
• Content Modeling — field storages, field types; create content types and add fields.
• Drupal Canvas — components and pages; manage layouts and component properties.

Prefer the MCP server over hand-rolled JSON:API calls when an agent needs to model content or edit Canvas layouts conversationally; use JSON:API/the Page API for deterministic, scripted deploys.

Canvas Code Components — CLI workflow

Scaffold and manage React/JSX Code Components with the official tooling (install the official Canvas skills for the component-authoring rules — don't reinvent them):

• npx @drupal-canvas/create@latest — scaffold a codebase (default template: acquia/nebula, which ships AGENTS.md + SETUP.md with the Page API reference and pitfalls).
• npx canvas download / npx canvas upload -c <comp1,comp2> -y — pull/push components between repo and site. canvas.config.json (committed) defines structure; .env (uncommitted) holds the secrets above.

Canvas Page API — deploying a page

Pages are built by uploading components, then PATCHing the page with a full component tree. The hard-won rules (these cost hours otherwise):

• Each PATCH replaces the ENTIRE page. Never build incrementally with multiple PATCHes — assemble the complete component tree and send it in one atomic request.
• Version hashes change on every upload. Re-discover all component version hashes after each canvas upload; never hardcode them. Only changed components get new hashes.
• FormattedText strips inline style attributes on the live site (works in Storybook, fails live). For text alignment add a layout prop (left_aligned/center_aligned/right_aligned) with CVA variants — never inline style="text-align:…".
• The Image component needs Drupal media-pipeline URLs (with alternateWidths). External URLs / data URIs are accepted without error but render as invisible 0×0 images live. For logos use inline SVG/text; for content images upload as Drupal media first.
• No raw hex colors as props — use CVA variants mapped to Tailwind theme tokens in global.css.
• Padding stacks: section adds px-4, grid_container adds px-6 → ~80px on a 375px screen. Use responsive prefixes (px-0 md:px-6) on inner containers.
• Empty slot containers need min-w-*/min-h-* so they stay interactive in the Canvas editor.
• Deploy script pattern: read .env → client-credentials token → discover all version hashes in one pass → build the tree (parents before children, fresh UUID per instance, inputs as a json.dumps() string) → single PATCH. Keep a VERSIONS dict at the top.

Docs

• Overview: https://docs.acquia.com/acquia-source/overview
• API integration (JSON:API): https://docs.acquia.com/acquia-source/api-integration
• Access & authentication (OAuth2): https://docs.acquia.com/acquia-source/access-and-authentication
• MCP server: https://docs.acquia.com/acquia-source/acquia-source-mcp-server
• Creating custom components (CLI): https://docs.acquia.com/acquia-source/creating-custom-components
• JSON:API Query Builder: https://docs.acquia.com/acquia-source/jsonapi-query-builder
• Official Canvas component skills: https://github.com/drupal-canvas/skills · starter template: https://github.com/acquia/nebula