Variants

Variants allow automatic transformations of property values when accessed via the API. Create variants on string or blob properties to generate transformed versions on-demand.

How Variants Work

1. Create a variant on a property (string or blob)
2. Define one or more transformation steps
3. Access the transformed value using $variantName syntax
4. Results are cached for performance

Available Transformers

Transformer	Property Type	Description
Translate	string	Translate text to different languages
Vision AI Image Description	blob	Generate AI descriptions of images
Image Resize	blob	Resize images to specific dimensions
Image Grayscale	blob	Convert images to grayscale

Creating Variants

In the Developer Portal

1. Navigate to your collection
2. Select a string or blob property
3. Click Add Variant
4. Name your variant (e.g., "thumbnail", "spanish")
5. Add transformation steps
6. Save

Chaining Transformers

Each variant can have multiple transformation steps applied in sequence:

Original Image → Resize (200x200) → Grayscale → Output

This allows complex transformations like "resize then convert to grayscale" in a single variant.

Accessing Variants

Blob Properties (Images/Files)

Append the variant name to the blob field URL:

GET https://eu.restapi.com/my-api/products/<item-id>/image$thumbnail

Examples:

/products/abc-123/image$thumbnail      # Resized thumbnail
/products/abc-123/photo$grayscale      # Grayscale version
/products/abc-123/image$small          # Custom "small" variant

String Properties (Text)

Use the select parameter with the variant name:

GET https://eu.restapi.com/my-api/articles/<item-id>?select=description$spanish

Examples:

?select=content$spanish                # Translated to Spanish
?select=description$summary            # Summarized version
?select=title,content$translated       # Multiple fields with variant

Multiple Variants

Request multiple variants in a single call:

GET https://eu.restapi.com/my-api/articles/abc-123?select=title,content$summary,content$spanish

Returns the title plus both a summarized and translated version of content.

Use Cases

Image Transformations

Use Case	Example Variant
Thumbnails	Resize to 150x150
Responsive images	Multiple size variants (small, medium, large)
Optimized formats	Convert to WebP
Grayscale previews	Remove color

Text Transformations

Use Case	Example Variant
Multilingual content	Translate to Spanish, French, German
Content previews	Summarize long articles
Accessibility	Generate image descriptions

Benefits

Benefit	Description
No code required	Configure in the portal, no functions needed
Cached results	Transformed content is cached automatically
On-demand	Only generated when first requested
Scalable	Runs on serverless infrastructure

Example: Product Images

Create variants for different image sizes:

Variant Name	Transformation
thumbnail	Resize to 100x100
card	Resize to 300x200
detail	Resize to 800x600
hero	Resize to 1920x1080

Access them:

/products/abc-123/image              # Original
/products/abc-123/image$thumbnail    # 100x100
/products/abc-123/image$card         # 300x200
/products/abc-123/image$detail       # 800x600

Example: Multilingual Content

Create translation variants for an article's description:

Variant Name	Transformation
spanish	Translate to Spanish
french	Translate to French
german	Translate to German

Access them:

?select=description                  # Original language
?select=description$spanish          # Spanish translation
?select=description$french           # French translation