REST absolute URLs

In a decoupled or headless Drupal site, images and links embedded in
rich-text fields often arrive at the frontend as root-relative paths
like /sites/default/files/image.jpg. React, Angular,
Vue, Next.js and native apps cannot resolve those paths – they
need the full https://example.com/… URL.

REST Absolute URLs rewrites root-relative URLs to
absolute URLs in content exposed through JSON:API, REST, and Views
REST Export. It runs during serialization only, so standard Drupal
page rendering is untouched. No configuration is required for the
common case; a single setting handles Docker and SSR environments
where Drupal would otherwise detect an internal container hostname.

Features

• Zero-config by default – Enable the module
  and relative URLs in formatted text fields become absolute in your
  JSON:API and REST responses.
• Covers CKEditor content – Rewrites
  <img src> and <a href> inside
  body fields and other formatted-text fields, both in the raw
  value and in the computed processed
  output.
• Views REST Export support – Works for both
  the Entity and Fields row plugins; rendered
  MarkupInterface values are rewritten before they reach
  the encoder.
• Explicit base URL override – Set
  $config['rest_absolute_urls']['base_url'] in
  settings.php for Docker, Kubernetes, server-side
  rendering or any setup where Drupal cannot detect the public host
  reliably.
• Per-environment configuration – Switch
  base URLs between production, staging and local environments with
  standard PHP settings logic.
• Safe for non-text fields – Only rewrites
  properties that are declared as the source of a processed text, so
  plain string fields are not touched and never double-encoded.
• No external dependencies – Requires only
  the core Serialization module.

Why use this module?

Drupal core's JSON:API serializer leaves embedded URLs as-is. The
common workarounds – preprocessing hooks, custom normalizers,
or frontend string replacement – are fragile and need to be
rewritten for every project. This module solves the problem once, at
the serializer level, for every formatted-text field and every
Views REST Export row, with no per-field configuration.

Comparison with related modules

Documentation