Bigcommerce for Node.js

A node module for authentication and use with the BigCommerce API

Installation

To install the module using NPM:

npm install node-bigcommerce

Or Yarn:

yarn add node-bigcommerce

Setup

Include the 'node-bigcommerce' module within your script and instantiate it with a config:

const BigCommerce = require('node-bigcommerce');

const bigCommerce = new BigCommerce({
  logLevel: 'info',
  clientId: '128ecf542a35ac5270a87dc740918404',
  secret: 'acbd18db4cc2f85cedef654fccc4a4d8',
  callback: 'https://myapplication.com/auth',
  responseType: 'json',
  headers: { 'Accept-Encoding': '*' }, // Override headers (Overriding the default encoding of GZipped is useful in development)
  apiVersion: 'v3' // Default is v2
});

Instantiating a BigCommerce instance without a config object will result in an error

Authorization

Set up your Big Commerce as above and pass the following configuration options in:

{
  clientId: 'Your application's client ID',
  secret: 'Your secret',
  callback: 'The location you want the app to return to on success',
  responseType: 'json'
}

You will be able to get your Client ID and Secret within your application setup. Below is an example using Express' routes:

const express = require('express'),
  router = express.Router(),
  BigCommerce = require('node-bigcommerce');

const bigCommerce = new BigCommerce({
  clientId: '128ecf542a35ac5270a87dc740918404',
  secret: 'acbd18db4cc2f85cedef654fccc4a4d8',
  callback: 'https://myapplication.com/auth',
  responseType: 'json'
});

router.get('/auth', (req, res, next) => {
  bigCommerce.authorize(req.query)
    .then(data => res.render('integrations/auth', { title: 'Authorized!', data: data })
    .catch(next);
  });
});

The authorize method requires the query parameters from the request to be passed. These are required to request a permanent access token which will be passed back in the data object.

An example data object:

{
  access_token: '9df3b01c60df20d13843841ff0d4482c',
  scope: 'store_v2_orders_read_only store_v2_products_read_only users_basic_information store_v2_default',
  user: {
    id: 12345,
    username: 'John Smith',
    email: 'john@success.com'
  },
  context: 'stores/x43tqo'
}

From this object you can store the access_token for re-use when calling the Big Commerce API.

Load & Uninstall

The only configuration element required to use the verify method (used for both load and uninstall endpoints) is secret. Below is an example using Express' routes:

const express = require('express'),
  router = express.Router(),
  BigCommerce = require('node-bigcommerce');

const bigCommerce = new BigCommerce({
  secret: 'acbd18db4cc2f85cedef654fccc4a4d8',
  responseType: 'json'
});

router.get('/load', (req, res, next) => {
  try {
    const data = bigCommerce.verify(req.query['signed_payload']);
    res.render('integrations/welcome', { title: 'Welcome!', data: data });
  } catch (err) {
    next(err);
  }
});

The verify method requires the signed_payload query parameter to be passed from the request. This is used to verify that the request has come from Big Commerce. The verify method returns the following object:

{
  user: {
    id: 12345,
    email: 'john@success.com'
  },
  context: 'stores/x43tqo',
  store_hash: 'x43tqo',
  timestamp: 1421748597.4395974
}

This will allow you to automatically log the user in (if required) when BigCommerce calls the load endpoint or remove/label a user that has uninstalled your application from their Big Commerce account.

Calling the API

The API can be called once the user has been authorized and has an access token. There is a helper for each type of request available within Big Commerce (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE).

To make an API Request you will need the following minimum configuration:

{
  clientId: 'Your application's client ID',
  accessToken: 'Token assigned to the user during authorisation',
  storeHash: 'The short hash for the store',
  responseType: 'json'
}

Parameters that are added to the url need to be escaped before they are passed as part of the path of any call:

const path = '/products?name=' + escape('Plain T-Shirt');

GET

The Get call requires a path: get(path):

const BigCommerce = require('node-bigcommerce');

const bigCommerce = new BigCommerce({
  clientId: '128ecf542a35ac5270a87dc740918404'
  accessToken: '9df3b01c60df20d13843841ff0d4482c',
  responseType: 'json'
});

bigCommerce.get('/products')
  .then(data => {
    // Catch any errors, or handle the data returned
  });

POST & PUT

The 'POST' & 'PUT' calls requires a path with optional data to be sent: post(path, data):

var BigCommerce = require('node-bigcommerce');

var bigCommerce = new BigCommerce({
  clientId: '128ecf542a35ac5270a87dc740918404'
  accessToken: '9df3b01c60df20d13843841ff0d4482c',
  responseType: 'json'
});

var product = {
  name: 'Plain T-Shirt',
  type: 'physical',
  description: 'This timeless fashion staple will never go out of style!',
  price: '29.99',
  categories: [18],
  availability: 'available',
  weight: '0.5'
}

// Replace 'post' with 'put' for a put call
bigCommerce.post('/products', product)
  .then(data => {
  // Catch any errors, or handle the data returned
  });

DELETE

The 'DELETE' call requires a path: delete(path). A delete call will not return any data and will return a response status of 204.

const BigCommerce = require('node-bigcommerce');

const bigCommerce = new BigCommerce({
  clientId: '128ecf542a35ac5270a87dc740918404',
  accessToken: '9df3b01c60df20d13843841ff0d4482c'
});

bigCommerce.delete('/products/' + productId)
  .then(() => {
  // Catch any errors, data will be null
  });

Debugging

We use debug, so just run with environment variable DEBUG set to node-bigcommerce:*

$ DEBUG=node-bigcommerce:* node my_test.js

Response Type

You may require the Big Commerce API to return data in a specific format. To return in either JSON or XML just add a 'responseType' to the config:

const BigCommerce = require('node-bigcommerce');

const bigCommerce = new BigCommerce({
  logLevel: 'info',
  clientId: '128ecf542a35ac5270a87dc740918404',
  accessToken: '9df3b01c60df20d13843841ff0d4482c',
  responseType: 'xml'
});

bigCommerce.post('/products?name=' + escape('Plain T-Shirt'))
  .then(data => {
  // Catch any errors, data will be null
  });

Note that when returning in JSON the data will be parsed into an object, XML will not, and will return a string. When no response type is given the type will resort to whatever the BigCommerce default is.

Webhooks can only be JSON so when dealing with the '/hooks' endpoint leave the responseType blank (or null).

Testing

yarn test

Contributing

This module was originally written to be used with Conversio and is used in a production environment currently. This will ensure that this module is well maintained, bug free and as up to date as possible.

Conversio's developers will continue to make updates as often as required to have a consistently bug free platform, but we are happy to review any feature requests or issues and are accepting constructive pull requests.