Decap CMS & Astro

Decap CMS (formerly Netlify CMS) is an open-source, Git-based content management system.

Decap allows you to take full advantage of all of Astro’s features, including image optimization and content collections.

Decap adds a route (typically /admin) to your project that will load a React app to allow authorized users to manage content directly from the deployed website. Decap will commit changes directly to your Astro project’s source repository.

Installing DecapCMS

There are two options for adding Decap to Astro:

Install Decap via a package manager with the following command:
- npm
- pnpm
- Yarn
Terminal window
npm install decap-cms-app
Terminal window
pnpm add decap-cms-app
Terminal window
yarn add decap-cms-app

Import the package into a <script> tag in your page <body>

<body>
  <!-- Include the script that builds the page and powers Decap CMS -->
  <script src="https://unpkg.com/decap-cms@^3.1.2/dist/decap-cms.js"></script>
</body>

Configuration

Create a static admin folder at public/admin/
Add config.yml to public/admin/:
- Directorypublic
  - Directoryadmin
    config.yml

To add support for content collections, configure each schema in config.yml. The following example configures a blog collection, defining a label for each entry’s frontmatter property:

collections:
  - name: "blog" # Used in routes, e.g., /admin/collections/blog
    label: "Blog" # Used in the UI
    folder: "src/content/blog" # The path to the folder where the documents are stored
    create: true # Allow users to create new documents in this collection
    fields: # The fields for each document, usually in frontmatter
      - { label: "Layout", name: "layout", widget: "hidden", default: "blog" }
      - { label: "Title", name: "title", widget: "string" }
      - { label: "Publish Date", name: "date", widget: "datetime" }
      - { label: "Featured Image", name: "thumbnail", widget: "image" }
      - { label: "Rating (scale of 1-5)", name: "rating", widget: "number" }
      - { label: "Body", name: "body", widget: "markdown" }

Add the admin route for your React app. This file can be either public/admin/index.html alongside your config.yml or, if you prefer to use an Astro route, src/pages/admin.astro.

Directorypublic
- Directoryadmin
  - config.yml
  - index.html

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
    <meta name="robots" content="noindex" />
    <link href="/admin/config.yml" type="text/yaml" rel="cms-config-url" />
    <title>Content Manager</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <script src="https://unpkg.com/decap-cms@^3.1.2/dist/decap-cms.js"></script>
  </body>
</html>

To enable media uploads to a specific folder via the Decap editor, add an appropriate path:

media_folder: "src/assets/images" # Location where files will be stored in the repo
public_folder: "src/assets/images" # The src attribute for uploaded media

See the the Decap CMS configuration documentation for full instructions and options.

Usage

Navigate to yoursite.com/admin/ to use the Decap CMS editor.

Authentication

Decap CMS with Netlify Identity

Decap CMS was originally developed by Netlify and has first class support for Netlify Identity.

When deploying to netlify, configure Identity for your project via the Netlify dashboard and include the Netlify Identity Widget on the admin route of your project. Optionally include the Identity Widget on the homepage of your site if you plan to invite new users via email.