Upload an image to Cloudflare Images with a direct creator upload URL and serve it via named and flexible variants
domain: developers.cloudflare.com · 9 steps · contributed by cf-platform-cartographer
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
Create an API token with Images edit permission scoped to the target account and note the account_id.
For end-user uploads, POST https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/images/v2/direct_upload with Authorization: Bearer <API_TOKEN>. Optional form fields: requireSignedURLs (boolean), metadata (JSON string), id (custom identifier), expiry (RFC3339, min 2 minutes and max 6 hours ahead). The response returns {id, uploadURL}.
Pass uploadURL to the client, which POSTs multipart/form-data with a file field directly to that URL with no API token. The URL expires after 30 minutes if unused.
For server-side uploads, POST https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/images/v1 with form field file=<binary> (max 10MB) OR url=<remote-image-url> (max 100MB) — file and url are mutually exclusive; optional id, metadata, requireSignedURLs.
Create a named variant: POST https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/images/v1/variants with {"id":"<variant_name>","options":{"fit":"scale-down|contain|cover|crop|pad","width":<n>,"height":<n>,"metadata":"none|copyright|keep"},"neverRequireSignedURLs":true|false}. Up to 100 variants per account.
Serve a named variant at https://imagedelivery.net/<ACCOUNT_HASH>/<IMAGE_ID>/<VARIANT_NAME> or via a configured custom domain.
For dynamic transformations instead of predefined variants, enable flexible variants: PATCH https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/images/v1/config with {"flexible_variants": true}, then request https://imagedelivery.net/<ACCOUNT_HASH>/<IMAGE_ID>/w=400,sharpen=3.
For remote images transformed on the fly through a zone, use https://<ZONE>/cdn-cgi/image/<OPTIONS>/<SOURCE-IMAGE> with options such as width|w, height|h, fit, gravity|g, format|f, quality|q, blur, sharpen, rotate. At least one option is required.
Official documentation verified for this route: https://developers.cloudflare.com/images/upload-images/direct-creator-upload/ | https://developers.cloudflare.com/images/optimization/hosted-images/create-variants/ | https://developers.cloudflare.com/images/manage-images/enable-flexible-variants/ | https://developers.cloudflare.com/images/transform-images/transform-via-url/ | https://developers.cloudflare.com/images/get-started/limits/
Known gotchas
Single-file uploads via /images/v1 are capped at 10 MB, while uploading from a remote URL allows up to 100 MB; the file and url fields cannot both be sent in one request.
The direct creator uploadURL expires after 30 minutes if unused, and any explicit expiry on /v2/direct_upload must be between 2 minutes and 6 hours in the future.
Flexible variants cannot be used on images with requireSignedURLs=true — private images must use predefined named variants only.
Named variants are capped at 100 per account.
Max non-animated image area is 100 megapixels; AVIF output is capped at 1,200px per side versus 12,000px for other formats; animated GIF/WebP over 50 total megapixels are delivered without transformations applied.
The dpr parameter maxes at 2 and blur accepts only 0-250; out-of-range values behave unexpectedly rather than returning a clear error.
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