Does Flask Work With Sanity?
Flask works seamlessly with Sanity as a backend API consumer, letting you build content-driven web applications with Python.
Quick Facts
How Flask Works With Sanity
Flask integrates with Sanity through Sanity's REST and GraphQL APIs, requiring no special libraries beyond standard HTTP clients. You fetch content from Sanity in your Flask route handlers using the `requests` library or `httpx`, then render it with Jinja2 templates or return JSON responses. This architecture treats Sanity as a headless CMS—your Flask app becomes the presentation layer while Sanity handles content storage, versioning, and real-time collaboration. The developer experience is straightforward: configure your Sanity project ID and dataset, authenticate with a token if needed, and query content on-demand or cache it for performance. Flask's lightweight nature makes it ideal for this pattern, especially for smaller projects or microservices. You can build statically-generated sites with Flask, server-side rendered templates pulling live Sanity data, or pure API backends serving content to frontend frameworks.
Best Use Cases
Quick Setup
pip install flask requests python-dotenvfrom flask import Flask, render_template, jsonify
import requests
import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv
load_dotenv()
app = Flask(__name__)
SANITY_PROJECT = os.getenv('SANITY_PROJECT_ID')
SANITY_DATASET = os.getenv('SANITY_DATASET', 'production')
SANITY_TOKEN = os.getenv('SANITY_TOKEN')
@app.route('/posts')
def get_posts():
query = '*[_type == "post"] | order(_createdAt desc)'
url = f'https://{SANITY_PROJECT}.api.sanity.io/v2021-06-07/data/query/{SANITY_DATASET}'
params = {'query': query}
headers = {'Authorization': f'Bearer {SANITY_TOKEN}'} if SANITY_TOKEN else {}
response = requests.get(url, params=params, headers=headers)
posts = response.json().get('result', [])
return jsonify(posts)
@app.route('/post/<post_id>')
def get_post(post_id):
query = f'*[_id == "{post_id}"][0]'
url = f'https://{SANITY_PROJECT}.api.sanity.io/v2021-06-07/data/query/{SANITY_DATASET}'
response = requests.get(url, params={'query': query})
post = response.json().get('result')
return render_template('post.html', post=post)
if __name__ == '__main__':
app.run(debug=True)Known Issues & Gotchas
Rate limiting on Sanity API calls if querying on every request without caching
Fix: Implement Flask caching (Flask-Caching) or Redis to cache Sanity responses, use Sanity's webhook system to invalidate cache on content updates
Authentication tokens exposed in environment—easy to accidentally commit to version control
Fix: Store Sanity tokens in environment variables only, never in code; use .env files with python-dotenv and add to .gitignore
Broken image references if Sanity image URLs aren't properly constructed in templates
Fix: Use Sanity's image URL builder in your template context or validate image asset URLs before rendering
Alternatives
- •Next.js with Sanity—full-stack React framework with native Sanity integration and static generation
- •Django with Sanity—more batteries-included Python web framework consuming Sanity as a headless backend
- •Gatsby with Sanity—static site generator specifically optimized for headless CMS workflows
Resources
Related Compatibility Guides
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