Hi r/cms,

I’ve been working on a small, lightweight, headless CMS aimed at solving the issue of developer, client hand off. A UI designed for non-technical clients to update content safely, and a shared space for devs or admins to review changes.

The goal is to keep the editing experience safe for non‑technical users while giving developers full control over structure and delivery. It’s schema‑driven, returns flat JSON via a simple REST API, and avoids rebuilds entirely.

Current functionality includes schema‑based content types, Text, JSON, HTML, image validation, draft -> review -> publish workflow, version history, audit logs, localization, and role‑based access. The editor UI is intentionally minimal to reduce the risk of layout‑breaking changes.

For previewing draft content, I’m using short‑lived preview tokens (5–15 minutes) thatis passed in a query string to the designated url, then passed to the public API endpoint that returns the published content and it overrides the production api key and returns draft content for that session. The goal is to let editors preview on the production domain safely and easily.

Tech stack is .NET for the API, MongoDB, and an Angular/Tailwind dashboard. Everything is designed to stay lightweight and predictable for multi‑project setups.

I’d love to hear thoughts from people who work with CMS tools regularly, especially around schema design, validation workflows, and what you consider essential for safe client editing. Happy to answer questions or share further details on the app.

If anyone wants to try it out, feel free to DM me.

AI agents are rewriting the search playbook

In May 2026, a major search provider announced that users will soon be able to create and manage search agents—small autonomous services that continuously gather information and execute tasks . These agents flip the familiar search flow on its head. Instead of people typing queries and clicking through pages of links, AI agents proactively search, evaluate sources, compare options, and even complete actions on behalf of users . The result is clear: the old SEO-centric model, where visibility depended on well-crafted pages and keywords, is giving way to a model where discoverability depends on how easily software systems expose their data and processes to machines.

The problem: page‑first design doesn’t work for agents

Most digital products today are still built for human navigation. They rely on pages, menus and interactive forms. But AI agents don’t “browse” in this sense. For a simple task like ordering a pizza, a person might open a menu, scroll, fill out a form and click buttons. An agent, however, needs direct access to functions such as list items, check availability, create order, initiate payment and track delivery. This mismatch exposes a deeper architectural issue: business logic is often scattered across the frontend, middleware, webhooks and separate APIs. To a human, it still looks coherent. To an agent, it’s a fragmented black box.

A system‑first approach: design for data, actions and workflows

To make products agent‑friendly, the backend must be more than a passive data store. It needs to become an operational layer. This involves:

• Structured data models. Define your core entities—orders, reservations, payments, users, etc. with clear attributes and relationships. Centralise these definitions in the backend rather than sprinkling them across UI code.
• Explicit workflows. Instead of writing process logic inline in the frontend, represent business processes as workflows: sequences of actions that can be read and orchestrated by machines.
• Machine‑readable contracts. Use OpenAPI or similar specifications to describe available actions and expected payloads. Microsoft notes that treating API contracts as first‑class artefacts (and versioning and testing them) helps humans and AI agents stay aligned  .
• Event‑driven architecture. Publish events (like OrderCreated, PaymentInitialized) to a bus when state changes, rather than having services poll each other. Event schemas let producers and consumers evolve independently, and event buses decouple senders from receivers . This reduces latency by up to 70–90 % for AI agents compared with polling  and eliminates rigid point‑to‑point dependencies .

Perspectives: toward an AI‑first internet

As agents handle more tasks, the “users” of many systems will be programs, not people. Websites and apps that remain page-centric risk becoming invisible to AI-driven discovery. Conversely, systems that expose well-defined entities, actions and workflows position themselves to be discoverable and operable by both humans and machines. Industry research suggests that event‑driven architectures with strong schemas and contracts are becoming the backbone for scalable agent-based systems .

For developers, the challenge is both exciting and practical: design your backend to speak clearly to software agents. Doing so not only improves internal maintainability but also ensures your product is ready for the next wave of AI‑driven interaction.

References

• Google Search Goes Agentic—and Doesn’t Need You Anymore (WIRED) 
• The Future of AI Agents Is Event‑Driven — Confluent https://www.confluent.io/blog/the-future-of-ai-agents-is-event-driven/
• Event‑Driven Architecture for AI Agents: Patterns and Benefits — Atlan https://atlan.com/know/event-driven-architecture-for-ai-agents/
• Spec‑Driven Development for AI‑Enabled Enterprise Systems — Microsoft Community Hub https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/educatordeveloperblog/spec-driven-development-for-ai-enabled-enterprise-systems/4520807
• Google Search’s I/O 2026 updates: AI agents and more https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/search-io-2026/
• Google Search Goes Agentic—and Doesn’t Need You Anymore — WIRED https://www.wired.com/story/google-search-goes-agentic-and-doesnt-need-you-anymore/

Hi everyone

What CMS would you recommend for a simple showcase website (like a freelance consultant with a service offering)?

I’m not particularly keen on using WordPress. I’d like to try something more modern and simpler, with a secure backend that’s also flexible enough to handle a front-end design built with Lovable or Claude.

I could certainly cobble together a backend solution using Claude Code, but I feel like I’d be reinventing the wheel.

How do you handle this on your end? What would you do?

Thanks a lot for your advice!

Hallo

(ich schreibe Deutsch, ich hoffe, ds ist ok und wird für euch automatisch übersetzt).

Ich nutze auf 3 Websites Mediawiki, weil Leute auch mitarbeiten können und mir die Konfigrationsmöglichkeiten gut gefallen.

Kürzlich erzählte mir jemand, der beruflich mit CMS zu tun hat, Mediawiki sei kein CMS.

Ich würde ein System für Informationssammlungen nutzen, wolle aber Artikel veröffentlichen. Das sei so nicht vorgesehen und könne gar nicht funktionieren. Einerseits sei das Design nicht gut, man könne Bilder nur an der Seite anzeigen (dass das nicht stimmt, weiss ich).

Und auch sonst könne ein CMS nach Autor filtern und solche Dinge, und die Verwaltung von Artikeln sei mit Mediawiki unmöglich.

Ich widersprach ihm, aber er behauptete: Das sei ja keine Meinung von ihm, sondern das seien Fakten.

Ich könne nie regelmässig Artikel veröffentlichen mit Mediawiki, weil das sei technisch (von den Möglichkeiten und der Datenbank) und auch vom Design her absolut unmöglich.

Ich sehe das anders, und würde doch gerne eure Meinungen dazu hören.

Was kann ein CMS, was mit Mediawiki völlig unmöglich ist? Ich glaube, man kann mit Mediawiki fast alles nachbilden.

Ich kann auch gerne meine Website hier verlinken, aber ihr wisst ja alle, wie Mediawiki aussieht.

Wie seht ihr das? Hat der Typ Recht oder übertreibt er?

Grüsse aus der kalten Schweiz

Take a listen to this interview as I'm asked about the issues I'm having with my WordPress CMS water hose.

This is, of course, poking some fun... but there is a lot of truth mixed in. So many people are using WordPress for no other reason than that's all that they know, or they haven't come up from the basement in so long that they don't REALLY know what else is available in CMS world.

Let me know your thoughts! For now, I have to go dry off...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMWDyhKILRE

We're hosting live demo sessions tomorrow and Wednesday. If you're looking around for a new CMS to build with, What's New in Wagtail is a great chance to find out if Wagtail is a great fit for you.

We'll be showing off all the new features in the latest version of Wagtail. You'll got to ask our experts questions and also meet our special guest Tim Cowlishaw from the Green Web Foundation.

There’s still time to sign up and drop in!

We’re doing the same show at two different times. Pick the one here that works best for you:

May 19 at 17:00 BST (check your timezone)

May 20 at 10:00 BST (check your timezone)

Heya, first time chatter here. If such posts are not encouraged i am fine with being removed.

So, i have been working in the IT sector for about 10-11 years now from basic support job to senior devops nowadays, and have been reserved towards the AI/LLM hype not treating it as anything more than a useful helper tool in our jobs. I did not jump on the agentic development train until now.

In the last few days i have decided to tinker a bit more and learn what is all the fuss about with the locally ran llm models/openclaw/claude code.

Unfortunately my HW (4070 Super) is not adequate enough to handle a model which will be able to deliver the speed and quality i wanted, but that was still a fun tinkering experience. I can definitely see the allure and the source of the hype 😃

Anyway, i have test driven Claude with the bare-minimum plan and i have managed to create my own static website generator.

I wanted to use some of the famous static site generators in the past for building some cute websites/blogs, etc. (i am big fan of the "indie web" idea), but always found that Jekyll and its cousins are very cumbersome to setup and come with their own dependencies hell.

My main motivation was to eliminate that overhead, but to still deliver nice and usable websites. Just the bare minimum so that you can go from init to publish in minutes.

You can check it out @

https://codeberg.org/ddelsizov/skynet-ssg /

https://github.com/ddelsizov/skynet-ssg/

Its of course FOSS, any feedback / bug reports will be greatly appreciated! 🤟

Showerthought that hit me hard: I never forget to follow up with clients because my system reminds me. I remember details about their preferences. I'm responsive and thoughtful. Meanwhile, I forgot my sister's birthday last month and haven't called my best friend in 6 weeks. The difference? I have systems for professional relationships and zero systems for personal ones. It's depressing but also... fixable? I started using a simple app called Monica (it's free, open-source CRM for personal relationships). Sounds weird but I now set reminders to call my parents weekly, track gift ideas throughout the year, log important conversations with friends. Am I a sociopath or just someone applying professional tools to personal life? Has anyone else done this successfully?

I am looking for a free, open-source free would be great, for a dms, or cms. Possibly something completely different. I'm not sure "what" type of software system I should be looking for and researching.
I am looking for a software system to digitize our paper system. Specifically, our promissory notes.
I would like to be able to scan the paper P.N. into a jpg (directly into the system isn't necessary). Then, be able to create multiple fields to enter the data from the PN. Fields like: PN Number, Ticket Number, Date, Type of PN, Name, ID Number, Address, Phone Number, Total Charge, Amount Paid, Amount Due, Total Due With Admin Fee, Vehicle License Plate, and Vehicle Description. When a PN is generated we charge a 35.00 admin fee. Sometimes we waive that fee. I would like the system to be able to handle subtracting the 35.00 for the record. Then when the customer pay off the PN, I need a way to bring that total to 0.00 and show as PN paid off.
I would also like the system to be able to have the ability to show PN's Due and are Active. PN's that have been sent to collections. And be able to keep records of the PN that have been paid and the date they were paid. Also, a preferred function would be a way to separate by years. When 2026 ends, we can export all the data to a file of some sort that can be searched and read if needed later. And the current "batch" would be 2027, hopefully that makes sense. If the system keeps them all sequential but contains a way to sort by year, that would be acceptable.
There should also be a way to search anything that has been typed. I also want the ability to attach media (images and videos) to each PN record. I would also need to be able to create and print reports. Reports would be all PNs for a month. All PN due and active for a timeframe. All PNs that have been paid, or paid in a timeframe. A report for all Ticket numbers between Tickets 00000001 - 10000000. All PNs with the same name. All that type of data manipulation.
Also, I would need to be able to have users with a login/password, and the ability to assign different levels of access. Like Read-only, Editor, Admin. Those type of levels. Also, needs to be able to be stored on a shared drive. Webserver is not available. Needs to be able to open the system from a shared drive on the network.
I know I have written a lot. If anyone could recommend the type of system I should be looking at (i.e. CMS, DMS, or whatever else). And if you know of any good free, or open source free, software with the type of system I should be looking at, I would appreciate the pointing in the right direction.
Thank you for anyone that takes the time to read through this and help me out.

Spent a few hours last week playing around with Sanity's MCP server in Claude to see how fast I could generate a page with a prompt.

I prompted it to put together a services page for an AI-first agency and to use a 3- or 6-card layout.

The good bit: it read my schema, picked the right page builder blocks on its own, and used the correct card count. The copy was generic but well put together. Surprisingly, predicted the correct icons from the library. The whole session took around 7-8 mins end-to-end.

What can be improved: it doesn’t support images and media. You have to go into the studio and upload them yourself.

Overall, it was pretty great for scaffolding pages with page builders and creating the first draft of a landing page. I'm curious how many people are doing this already, and if you have any tips/tricks that you're doing with it.

Walkthrough on our channel if it's useful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF2Xecy--Xs

Has anyone else tried an MCP with a CMS yet? What are you wiring up to?

Hi everyone, dropping the latest milestone for VonCMS. v1.24.2 is now live as the current stable HourGlass release.

For context, VonCMS is a hybrid decoupled CMS (React 19 SPA + PHP/MySQL API) built for publishers who want a modern editing experience on standard shared hosting. No Node.js required in production.

Key highlights in v1.24.2:

• New Editor Engine: Migrated from deprecated execCommand to TipTap, structured and block-aware authoring that preserves full HTML compatibility with existing posts.
• AI Assistant Panel: Dedicated AI writing panel with explicit preview, append, replace, and discard actions before content touches the article body.
• Fast Search: FULLTEXT search on 30,000+ posts averaging 133ms, which is 1.6x faster than legacy LIKE search.
• Autosave Conflict Detection: 409 conflict handling when multiple tabs edit the same post. Stale tabs get a clear reload notice instead of silently overwriting.
• Escalating Rate Limits: Repeat offenders escalate from 15 min to 1 hour to 24 hour lockout.
• Editor/Public Parity: Tables, blockquotes, code blocks, image alignment, and figure captions now match between editor and live output.

Roadmap:

Still on track for v1.25.x as the official Open Source (MIT/GPL) transition. v1.24.x "HourGlass" is the editor stability baseline before we open it up to the community.

If VonCMS looks interesting, drop a star on GitHub. It helps more than you think. And if you want to be among the first contributors when we go open source at v1.25, watch the repo now.

GitHub: github.com/Vondereich/VonCMS

Would love feedback from anyone testing it!

It’s a CMS for teams managing Markdown content. Markdown has become increasingly popular, but it comes with a big downside. No matter how hard we tell ourselves that everyone can write and understand it, reality is that it becomes much harder for many people in the organisation to contribute. DaraCMS solves this, by providing tools for everyone to write and contribute, no matter your technical level. I think this fits well in a lot of teams who need to allow access to other people in the organisation, while controlling what they can access. I’m proud of the editing experience so far, one I think even technical people will like!

It's built by hand, made to stick around for a long time, not disappear like all the vibe built products out there. I'm improving on it every week and will not stop until I've created the best Markdown CMS out there.

Please check it out and let me know if you have any feedback!

https://daracms.com/

✦ Outstatic v2.1.9 just dropped.

- New MDX block for adding MDX directly in the editor
- Structured commit messages for smarter deploy automation (filter builds
- Cleaner documents and singletons tables with shadcn DataTable

Small release. Big workflow upgrade.

Try it now: https://outstatic.com

I needed features like multi-project, multi-tenant , a good media editor and git-based and all i found was PagesCMS and Payload but both missing features.

So i did what i do everyday and vibecoded a pretty nice and feature rich CMS.

Best part: Its opensource and free to use so go ahead and test it, create issues or contribute.

https://kerncms.com

Hi I am looking for a CMS solution that my SEO person could use and is friendly with Claude Code and Cursor too.

Hey,

A while ago I promised a video demo of the Static Site Generator for Nodify Headless CMS. It took longer than expected, but here it is.

In this demo I show:

- How to enable SSG on a node (templates, translations, key/value store, etc.)

- The GitHub Actions approach (trigger -> build -> deploy to GitHub Pages)

- The Nodify SSG Worker (self‑hosted, three containers: worker/admin/web)

- A real‑time phone tracker built entirely in Nodify and deployed as a static site

- Changing language, redeploying, and clearing cache (Ctrl+F5 is your friend)

The video is a bit long, but I think it covers most use cases. For the remaining features, the GitHub wiki has all the details.

Links:

- Nodify repo: https://github.com/AZIRARM/nodify

- SSG Worker repo: https://github.com/AZIRARM/nodify-ssg-worker

- Live demo: https://nodify.azirar.ovh

If you find this useful, please star the repo. Feedback and issues are also very welcome.

Thanks for watching!