Parent

Learn more about different parent objects that link together a workspace’s entities in Notion’s API.

Pages, databases, data sources, comments and blocks are either located inside other pages, databases, data sources, and blocks, or are located at the top level of a workspace. This location is known as the “parent”. Parent information is represented by a consistent parent object throughout the API.

General parenting rules:

• Pages can be parented by other pages, data sources, blocks, agents, or by the whole workspace.
  • Prior to API version 2025-09-03, page parents were databases, not data sources.
  • Agent parents only show up on agent instruction pages.
• Blocks can be parented by pages, data sources, blocks, or agents.
  • Agent parents only show up on blocks inside agent instruction pages.
• Databases can be parented by pages, blocks, or by the whole workspace.
  • For wikis, databases can also have a data source parent.
• Data sources are parented by databases.
  • Linked or externally synced external data sources may have data source parents, but aren’t thoroughly supported in Notion’s API.

Exceptions apply

These parenting rules reflect the possible response you may receive when retrieving information about pages, databases, and blocks via Notion’s REST API in the latest APIversion.

If you are creating new pages, databases, or blocks via Notion’s public REST API, the parenting rules may vary. For example, the parent of a database currently must be a page if it is created via the API.

Refer to the API reference documentation for creating pages, databases, data sources, and blocks for more information on current parenting rules.

Database parent

Database parents most commonly show up for Data source objects.

Property	Type	Description	Example values
type	string	Always "database_id".	"database_id"
database_id	string (UUIDv4)	The ID of the database that this page belongs to.	"b8595b75-abd1-4cad-8dfe-f935a8ef57cb"

Database parent example

{
  "type": "database_id",
  "database_id": "d9824bdc-8445-4327-be8b-5b47500af6ce"
}

Data source parent

Data source parents most commonly show up for Page objects.

Property	Type	Description	Example values
type	string	Always "data_source_id".	"data_source_id"
data_source_id	string (UUIDv4)	The ID of the data source that this page belongs to.	"1a44be12-0953-4631-b498-9e5817518db8"
database_id	string (UUIDv4)	The ID of the database that the data source belongs to, provided in the API response for convenience.	"b8595b75-abd1-4cad-8dfe-f935a8ef57cb"

Data source parent example

{
  "type": "data_source_id",
  "data_source_id": "1a44be12-0953-4631-b498-9e5817518db8",
  "database_id": "d9824bdc-8445-4327-be8b-5b47500af6ce"
}

Page parent

Property	Type	Description	Example values
type	string	Always "page_id".	"page_id"
page_id	string (UUIDv4)	The ID of the page that this page belongs to.	"59833787-2cf9-4fdf-8782-e53db20768a5"

Page parent example

{
  "type": "page_id",
  "page_id": "59833787-2cf9-4fdf-8782-e53db20768a5"
}

Workspace parent

A page or database with a workspace parent is a top-level page within a Notion workspace. Team-level pages are also currently represented as having a workspace parent in the API.

The workspace parent object contains the following keys:

Property	Type	Description	Example values
type	type	Always "workspace".	"workspace"
workspace	boolean	Always true.	true

Workspace parent example

{
  "type": "workspace",
  "workspace": true
}

Block parent

A page may have a block parent if it is created inline in a chunk of text, or is located beneath another block like a toggle or bullet block. The parent property is an object containing the following keys:

Property	Type	Description	Example values
type	type	Always "block_id".	"block_id"
block_id	string (UUIDv4)	The ID of the page that this page belongs to.	"ea29285f-7282-4b00-b80c-32bdbab50261"

Block parent example

{
  "type": "block_id",
  "block_id": "7d50a184-5bbe-4d90-8f29-6bec57ed817b"
}

Agent parent

Agent parents show up on agent instruction pages and the blocks that make them up, where the parent is the agent the instructions belong to. Most pages and blocks do not have agent parents.

Property	Type	Description	Example values
type	type	Always "agent_id".	"agent_id"
agent_id	string (UUIDv4)	The ID of the agent that owns this instruction page or block.	"7d50a184-5bbe-4d90-8f29-6bec57ed817b"

Agent parent example

{
  "type": "agent_id",
  "agent_id": "7d50a184-5bbe-4d90-8f29-6bec57ed817b"
}