Custom Blocks

What a custom block is

worker.customBlock() declares a front-end web app that Notion serves in an iframe. It is a build-time/deploy-time capability with no execute handler, so it cannot be run with ntn workers exec. A custom block has two SDK surfaces: @notionhq/workers declares how the block is built and which data-source schemas it expects, while @notionhq/custom-blocks allows the the iframe frontend code to communicate with the Notion host at runtime.

Before scaffolding a custom block frontend, add @notionhq/custom-blocks to the worker's existing root package.json, add @notionhq/custom-blocks-dev-shell to its devDependencies, and install from the worker root. The block frontend shares that package and its node_modules. Do not create a second package.json inside the Vite app. Read the installed packages' READMEs and docs for the current client API.

Use the custom blocks dev shell to test locally:

ntn customblocks dev

This builds the worker, serves each block with the project's Vite server, and renders in a mock Notion host with sample data sources to bind.

See the README in node_modules/@notionhq/custom-blocks-dev-shell for information on data bindings and sample data.

Block sources

A project source is the default. path points to a buildable project directory relative to the worker root. The deploy pipeline runs npm run build in that directory and serves its dist output by default:

worker.customBlock("issueBoard", {
  path: "./blocks/issue-board",
})

Use command and output to override those build defaults:

worker.customBlock("issueBoard", {
  path: "./blocks/issue-board",
  command: "npm run build-prod",
  output: "build",
})

Use a static source when the directory already contains browser assets that should be served as-is:

worker.customBlock("issueBoard", {
  type: "static",
  path: "./blocks/issue-board/dist",
})

Data-source schemas

The optional dataSources field declares the schema a block expects. It does not bind the block to a concrete database. Schema keys and property keys are author-defined identifiers.

worker.customBlock("issueBoard", {
  path: "./blocks/issue-board",
  version: 1,
  dataSources: {
    issues: {
      name: "Issues",
      description: "The team's issues",
      icon: { type: "emoji", emoji: "🐛" },
      properties: {
        title: {
          name: "Title",
          type: "title",
        },
        status: {
          name: "Status",
          description: "Workflow state",
          type: "status",
        },
      },
    },
  },
})

Property types use Public API names such as title, rich_text, number, select, multi_select, status, date, people, files, checkbox, url, email, phone_number, formula, relation, and rollup.

At render time, the block maps its configured bindings to the matching dataSources keys. Read the example source above with useDataSource("issues") from @notionhq/custom-blocks/react.