Headless Mode

Running the CreativeEngine as a pure API (with no editor UI, no visible canvas, and no user interaction) to perform creative operations entirely through code. In headless mode, the engine loads scenes, manipulates blocks, injects data, and exports outputs without rendering anything to a screen. It is the foundation for server-side creative automation and any workflow where production happens without a human in the loop.

Because the engine is identical in both modes, a design authored and approved in the editor will render identically when exported by a headless server process. There is no conversion step and no rendering discrepancy between what a user sees on screen and what gets produced at scale.

On the web, the engine can run headlessly in a browser context without mounting any UI, useful for background processing within a web application, generating previews without opening the editor, or offloading export work to a Web Worker.

On the server, the engine runs in Node.js without any browser dependency. This is the standard environment for batch pipelines, scheduled jobs, and API endpoints that produce creative assets on demand. The CE.SDK Renderer provides a containerized, production-ready deployment of the server-side headless engine, pre-packaged as a Docker image with an HTTP API.

The CreativeEngine also runs headlessly on iOS and Android. Mobile headless mode is used for on-device processing: generating personalized assets within a mobile app without a network round-trip to a server, or performing export operations in the background after the user closes the editor.

The Swift and Kotlin headless APIs mirror the JavaScript API. A workflow designed and tested on web can be ported to mobile with the same logical structure and the same template files, no format conversion needed.

Load, Inject, Export

The fundamental batch pattern. Load a template, set variable values from a data record, export to the target format, repeat for the next record. Used for certificate generation, personalized direct mail, data-driven product imagery, and any workflow with a one-to-one mapping between data rows and output files.

Webhook and API-Triggered Export

A webhook or API endpoint receives a request with template ID and data payload, runs the headless engine, and returns or stores the output. Integrates creative production into broader application workflows: an e-commerce checkout that triggers a personalized order confirmation PDF, or a CMS publish action that generates social assets automatically.

Thumbnail Pre-Rendering

Load templates or saved user designs, render a preview frame, and store the image for display in a gallery or asset browser, without requiring the full editor to open. Improves perceived performance for template pickers and design history interfaces.

Microservice Architecture

Deploy the engine as a stateless rendering microservice behind an API gateway. Each request is isolated, the service scales horizontally, and no session state is maintained between calls. The CE.SDK Renderer is purpose-built for this deployment pattern.