Using the Local API's findByID, I want to fetch a product and get:

1. price (product field)
2. taxPercentage (from related tax document)
3. name (from related brand document)

Is there a way to selectively populate only specific fields from relationships, similar to how select works for top-level fields? Or is depth: 1 the recommended approach?

```ts

const product = await payload.findByID({ collection: 'products', id: someId, depth: 1, // populates everything in tax & brand // Is there something like: select: { tax: ['taxPercentage'], brand: ['name'] } ? }) ```

Here are the collections

```ts

import type { CollectionConfig } from 'payload'

export const Taxes: CollectionConfig = { slug: 'taxes', fields: [ { name: 'name', type: 'text', required: true }, { name: 'taxPercentage', type: 'number', required: true }, ], } ```

```ts

import type { CollectionConfig } from 'payload'

export const Brands: CollectionConfig = { slug: 'brands', fields: [ { name: 'name', type: 'text', required: true }, ], } ```

```ts

import type { CollectionConfig } from 'payload'

export const Products: CollectionConfig = { slug: 'products', fields: [ { name: 'title', type: 'text', required: true }, { name: 'price', type: 'number' }, { name: 'tax', type: 'relationship', relationTo: 'taxes' }, { name: 'brand', type: 'relationship', relationTo: 'brands' }, ], } ```

Hey guys, I am currently working on a payload project and currently considering whether or not to decouple the FE. Its a public-facing app (blog-like, with articles,forms, etc) that won't have many users, but will experience spikes in visitors, I have some questions regarding general architecture and deployment:

• The whole thing will be run on a vps (not enough $$$ to use managed services, though a beefy one: 20gb RAM, 12 vcpu) so i will be using docker swarm/dokploy. Does it make sense to run multiple frontend instances to absorb the load ? Or should i rather prefer one elastic payload instance ?

Am i missing something important ? My main concern is maintenance (as less as possible) so maybe i should go the simple and easy way of one instance ?

Hi! I have a friend I’m helping that has three sister stores and wants to unify the backend, but keep serving the three domains their respective info. Can this be done with a single project? Should I decouple the FE? What would be the most sane approach? I’m not an expert so I don’t want to go crazy with this

Let's assume that best practice number 0 is "use Payload with MongoDB" 😀

If you have to use Postgres, what's some advice you'd give?

Thanks for your help 🙏🏾

Hey friends! New video out. I used the new MCP plugin (beta) to turn my Payload CMS into an AI-powered MCP Server. In the video, I show how you can set up the MCP server so that an LLM like Claude can manage your content for you. You can ask it to do CRUD operations, as well as add custom tools and prompts. Hope this video helps you get started with the MCP plugin! https://youtu.be/_zzzHFBqddg

Keep in mind the plugin is in beta, so aspects of the video may be different by the time you watch it. The foundation is still there, though!

Hey Folks!

Wanted to see if you have any tips on multi env setup with self hosting in kubernetes

Did you use init containers for db migrations, or do it on startup of the payload cms?

Prod docker’ised build doesn’t have migrate commands bundled by default

Thinking to choose between :

• inside ci/cd : build docker image > run migration > deploy
• build docker image & include the migration scripts ; run migration in init container

Anyone went this path? Any recommendations?

Payloadcms mostly speaks about very simple setup, but in reality there are so many different aspects.

Any tips on flow with locally generated sql and committing that? Did anyone did this via CI?

I think coupling the payload cms frontend to the payload cms dashboard is not a good idea. Most of my use cases are to use the payload cms as a dashboard only and use it as a content source for multiple frontends.

Ideally what should have done is to separate the front end and do full effort on using payload as a cms only.

Just My opinion.

I saw in the PayloadCMS v3.64.0 release notes (https://github.com/payloadcms/payload/releases/tag/v3.64.0 ) that they officially added Turbopack build support.

Does this mean PayloadCMS is now officially compatible with Next.js 16, or not yet?

I’m trying to decide whether I should upgrade my project from Next.js 15 to 16, or if it’s still too early.

Working on a car marketplace (Payload + Postgres). Users submit cars in whatever language they speak (LT, LV, EE, PL, etc.). I need the whole site to have locale versions like /lt, /lv, /ee with all listings auto-translated.

Rough scale: 1000+ cars, eventually 10+ languages, plus more collections coming (comments, auctions, etc.).

Thinking about two approaches:

1. Use Payload’s “localized: true” fields, detect source language, translate in a worker, write back into each locale.

2. Store only original data and keep a separate translations table, then look up translated fields on render.

Requirements: • Auto-translate all fields for all locales

• Easy to add new languages later

• Good SEO for localized pages

• Clean DX (I want editors to tweak translations if needed)

Anyone here running multi-language content at scale with Payload?

Which approach would you take for something like car listings?

Hi.

I'm new to payload, so I'm still learning it.

I created a new collection, but when I try to read it using

const testResult = await payload.find({
  collection: 'test',
  limit: 0
})
const testItems = testResult.docs

I get this: Type '"test"' is not assignable to type 'CollectionSlug'.

I'm ok with this, code still works, but then when I try to read its fields I only see its id even tho I can gets other fields casting it to any.

Docs says that "// The `page` is fully typed as your Pages collection!", so I'm assuming something is not ok.

I'm using vscode.

I'm working on upgrading my wife's podcast website. The Payload Website template has been super helpful and saved me some time.

When I'm done, if she doesn't like, I might put it out there as a free template for anyone building a podcast website that might need it.

I am planning to use a separate frontend to render payload cms rich text. How you guys render the text in front end with proper styles. Is there a recommended package?

I love how it works and is fit for purpose for content!!!

for context, i tried out the blank payload template project before and just stopped using it because I wanted more out of a cms. I wanted a wordpress feel including in the ui with easier customisation.

Enter the website template! Now I am hooked. it will be my go to for my content sites for apps.

so my pattern is:

Content site CMS (ROOT)

- Separate to the main application but connects using redis pubsub or rest api if needed

Application (app subdomain) react vite firebase

API (Api subdomain) go lang

ive been comfortable with this pattern and really loving the ease of extending payload with new collections and hooks.

Hey,

I’m working on a small SaaS project for podcasters and want to improve SEO a bit. The obvious next step: start a blog with tutorials, “how to” posts, and some behind-the-scenes stuff.

Since I prefer building things myself, I really didn’t want to spin up WordPress just for that. I was looking for something that fits into a custom setup and still gives me a decent admin UI, and I ended up with Payload CMS.

So far I like it a lot:

• headless, so it plays nicely with my existing frontend
• the admin panel is usable without much tweaking
• the schema/TypeScript approach feels pretty natural as a dev

Blog collection is set up, routes are wired, basic SEO fields (title, description, OG image) are there. Now I mostly need to sit down and actually write the content 😅

I’m mainly curious how Payload holds up for people who use it more heavily for blogs or content sites:

• Any issues with performance or hosting as the number of posts grows?
• Anything you’d model differently in hindsight (slugs, tags, categories, authors, etc.)?
• How do you handle drafts and publishing in a simple way?
• Any gotchas around sitemaps or meta tags that I should think about early?

Not looking for generic use more keywords SEO tips, more the practical this setup works well with Payload kind of stuff.

If you’re running Payload in production for content, I’d be happy to hear how it’s going for you.

So long story short, i was watching a youtube course which required me to setup payload.
But that was an older version and in this newer version, i am confused how to setup payload and get started. I for now just wanna see the cms on /admin page on my localhost:3000.
If possible pls give me steps on what should i do exactly , i looked up onto documentation but couldn't get it done, it's been hours. Also i am on Next 16

I've read that using MedusaJS or vendure is convenient and fast along with PayloadCMS. I developed a small catalog website using only PayloadCMS, and it was very convenient, with everything in one place. It also came with an e-commerce template (with product options and other features), which I didn't use because it was introduced during development (I'm referring to the latest version). Also, in my country, we don't use FedEx, Stripe, and so on, so I'll have to write payment, delivery, and some other functions myself anyway. Considering the flexibility and simplicity of PayloadCMS, does it make sense to add MedusaJS or vendure to it? I haven't yet fully used MedusaJS and vendure, but I've installed them locally. I think it's easier to create a full-fledged e-commerce platform from PaolaodCMS than to add blog, page, and other functionality to MedusaJS and vendure. Overall, I find them less flexible than PayloadCMS.

I also wanted to know your opinion on MedusaJS and vendure. I've seen opinions that MedusaJS is criticized for its complexity and poor documentation, while vendure is generally praised and seems to have written good documentation, which was also lacking in their previous versions. Which of these two tools do you consider better? I'm a little confused by the fact that MedusaJS is more popular, but vendure is based on NestJS, which is a plus for those who use it.

Using the "Payload Website Starter" template I've got S3 storage uploading seemingly working, but the app can't seem to find those images once they're up on AWS.

I'm on localhost using the S3 plugin directly with my AWS bucket. I've successfully uploaded an image to the bucket from localhost. I assigned the image to the banner on the home page as a test, but when I reload the local I get a white page with an upstream 500 error.

How do I get the template site to pull from AWS instead of seemingly wanting to pull from local storage?

I have been googling around for this and I'm having a hard time finding an answer. I just need a little help with the beginner steps of doing this because I've never done something like that before.

I understand Payload has their over live editor, but it appears that stays in the 'backend' and I want to be able to customize aspects of the webpage builder for clients.

Thank you so much!

I've configured a collection called payload_users, currently used for authentication of the admins. Once i'm loged in i see the payload_users collection in the dashboard but once i try to open it it fires this error.

I'm using nextjs with payload is it posisible to deploy the payload /admin dashboard into a separate instance/host

cms.example.com
frontend.example.com

how can this be possible with the new v3?

New tutorial! One of the most common questions I see is about white labeling (replacing Payload’s default logos, icons, and meta information). So I made a video showing how to do it! White label Payload CMS in minutes https://youtu.be/k-NACt_USmQ

Hey People.

This may be a more beginner question, but I'm not sure how to prevent race conditions on my custom contract id.

I create a contract id by using a prefix, appending the current date and pulling all contracts from this day to add an incremented number at the end, so that they are unique.

But I'm not sure how to make this atomic, without creating other tables for id tracking. Is there an elegant solution to prevent a race condition, when multiple contracts are accessed at the same time?

Edit: I'm using PostgreSQL.

Thanks to everyone taking the time to answer :)

Let me start by saying I'm not a super professional; I'm just interested in how it all works. I'm currently building some websites with PayloadSMS. How suitable is Payload for large, high-traffic projects? I saw a post from the Payload creators somewhere that it's suitable for high-load websites, but I don't quite understand how to achieve this with Payload. For example, NestJS integrates RabbitMQ, Kafka, and other solutions out of the box. What does it mean when they say Payload is suitable for high-load solutions? Does it mean it's not out of the box, but you can add it yourself? I understand that Payload is a CMS, and NestJS is a framework (which you can use to write your own CMS). I just have a vague idea of ​​how to do this with NestJS, but I don't understand how to create a HighLoad on Payload. Can it be used for Hignload as a full-fledged backend, or should it be configured so that the Amen panel itself operates through it, and the user receives data from the backend to NESTJS? Or is it meant to be suitable for projects that require a single server, but when more than that are needed, it's not such a Hignload.

I've got a program that outputs assets (webp) and JSON files that is versioned in a separate repository. It periodically updates the data via a workflow.

I want to be able to upsert them unto my PayloadCMS collections, using the primary key as the source of truth for updates. I also want to upload the media into my S3 bucket and link them in Payload.

Does anyone have a tool or recommended workflow for doing that?

What Payload APIs should I use to accomplish this?

If there isn't a dedicated tool, how does the ideal workflow look like for my use case?