The Future Of Content As Code: Combining Headless Cms With Static Site Generators

New web development trends show that the growing phenomenon of headless CMS and static site generators (SSGs) are changing and enhancing the process of creating, managing and publishing web content. The merger creates a modern world of "content as code" where the same precision, automation and scalability capabilities given to application logic are now extended to structured content, and static assets. Therefore, the end product is a speedy, developer-friendly, asset-heavy framework that is fast, secure and easier to maintain long term.

What Does Content as Code Mean?

"Content as Code" is a term that represents not just a future way of thinking, but a philosophy that many teams will start to adopt when it comes to content and its relationship with technology. For years, content has been siloed apart from a code base and development pipeline. But with the advent of headless CMS and SSGs, what is a headless CMS becomes a critical question for organizations aiming to modernize their workflows, since content can now be version controlled just like code, CI/CD pipelines can push content into production, and the front-end build process allows content to be previewed in real time. As code becomes more and more intertwined with content, projects can leverage the same efficiencies that are afforded when content is treated as software consistency, predictability, improved deployment automation and enjoy even better integration of content as a first-class citizen in modern web experiences.

Where Does a Headless CMS Come In?

While the content as code philosophy will inspire future thinking around digital experiences, headless CMS tools will provide a pathway to success. A headless CMS supports structured, presentation-agnostic content via APIs. Editors/content creators can live within a clean UI to control content text, images, assets while developers can render that content into their static builds using REST or GraphQL. The decoupling of presentation and storage doesn't complicate governance; instead, it makes for a controlled expansion. The headless CMS serves as the source of truth and the structure for all data titles, images, metadata, and layouts that can be pulled into everything a page needs, but also reused across countless other static pages, applications and digital experiences across the enterprise.

How Does a Static Site Generator Use This Information?

Static Site Generators (SSGs) take the headless approach one step further by creating pages out of raw content during a project's build process. Static pages include Next.js (with static export), Gatsby, Hugo, Astro, and Eleventy. Utilize an SSG for blazing fast load times, SEO success, and decreased on-the-fly error generation. Just as with headless CMS content, when SSGs tap into a headless CMS at build time, that structured data becomes part of static pages served via lightning-fast, globally distributed CDNs meaning no server-side rendering needs to happen to create the end-user experience. The architecture supports security as well; without the need for a dynamic backend to serve HTTP requests, the vulnerabilities offered to hackers are decreased.

What's Next? Git vs API Based CMS Options.

The future of Git-or-API based CMS options will enable various combinations of Git-based CMS to control content left as markdown or .json files in Git repositories (like Netlify CMS or Forestry) along with more API-based solutions (like Contentful or Sanity or Strapi) for more dynamic content creation and real-time data uploads. Collaborating seamlessly with SSGs, both allow creator/content editors the ability to use tools with which they're already familiar while simultaneously granting developers absolute power over how the content responds with rapid iteration timelines and flexible deployment workflows. Ultimately, content will always reside with the code base and resulting build pipeline.

CI/CD and Webhooks Allow for Fully Automated Builds

One of the greatest perks of a headless CMS with SSGs is fully automated content deployments via webhooks and CI/CD. When new content is pushed to the CMS, or existing content is updated and saved, a webhook can trigger a static site rebuild on GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, CircleCI, or the automatic Netlify Build step. Essentially, new content is live without a developer's intervention almost instantly. Thus, once the content team pushes out new articles and pages, they're live without conversations or approvals needed from developers. This means that the content team can do its job without depending on the developers' courtesy and the live site is always up to date with what's approved content.

Previews and Draft Capabilities for Content Teams

One limitation of generating a static site is the ability to preview and draft content for editors. However, many of the modern headless CMS options have preview APIs by which developers can craft draft and staging sites on the frontend. For example, content editors can see how their unpublished text looks when rendered in context alongside the production experience. This comprehensibility not only enhances editors' feelings about and confidence in their edits, but it minimizes the potential for breaking layouts and encourages collaboration across teams during the content pipeline.

Developer Efficiency with Unique Content Blocks for Easy Reuse

Component-based development translates directly to structured content models. By using unique content blocks in the CMS, developers can map their reusable components as metadata banners, CTAs, testimonials, product cards to structured content models. This means that these render upon compilation and static generation, giving developers the ability to reuse similar pieces site-wide while maintaining on-brand consistency. Developers don't need to hardcode or edit text; no manual updates per field are required. Furthermore, content teams can use and reuse components across pages via WYSIWYG editors or drag-and-drop visuals in a modular fashion. Ultimately, this alignment allows for quicker turnaround times across the board and allows for scaling across digital experiences.

Supporting Localization and Multi-Channel Publishing

Digital experiences are often global and thus need localization. Content as Code helps manage such requirements with ease. Headless CMSs come with multi-language fields/variants of content and SSGs can pre-render/static localized versions of each page. At the build step, for instance, content relevant to one language or country can be fetched and rendered separately, easing a multilingual site with minimal redundancies. This also supports multi-channel publishing. The same exact logical structure as a content unit can fuel web pages, a mobile app, a digital display, or a voice interface, all rendered from the same CMS and build pipeline.

Providing Better Observability and Version Control

One of the most powerful advantages of treating content as code is incredible observability. Treating content as code suggests that the content structure is outlined in content schema files as well as entries through markdown and configuration files, all of which are versioned in Git. This allows teams to have a full audit trail of changes, who changed what, when, and why. Additionally, rollbacks are as simple as going back to prior commit. Coupled with build logs and deployment history, teams have a full picture of what they have done and pushed to production. Problems can be solved quickly, forced workflows can be more easily adhered to, and compliance is ensured for larger enterprises or geographically distributed teams.

Enhancing Security and Reducing Attack Surface

Lastly, an SSG creates a static site that is more secure than dynamically generated sites because there is less attack surface available at runtime. Since everything is pre-rendered and served via CDN for example, nefarious users do not have the same opportunity to infiltrate server-side activity. When combined with proper API access controls at the headless level and secure content workflows at the CMS, organizations can significantly decrease their risk of evil deeds occurring. This type of solution reduces the enormous infrastructure typically needed for backend systems, the runtime database requirements, etc., resulting in less opportunity for sensitive content endpoints to be exposed to the public internet.

Ability to Build Flexible Teams with Decoupled Workflows

Because traditional CMS infrastructure connects development and content infrastructure, teams can easily fall prey to content backlog and workflow delays. The headless CMS + SSG infrastructure creates a decoupled workflow for development and content generation. Developers can work on the front-end experience in a bubble while content developers can create, view, and publish their structured content within the CMS. This decoupling enables simultaneous external and content-facing workflows, faster deployments, and easier access across teams. Agile teams can work on feature testing at the same time as publishing new content related to the action without having to wait for each other.

A Step Toward Composable Digital Experience Platforms (DXP)

The integration of a headless CMS with static site generators is just one step toward creating a fully composable digital experience platform (DXP). As many digital infrastructures are now formed through microservices and an API-first approach, content is only one of many services provided to create the end experience. By applying a headless CMS to SEO-friendly static site generators, content is just one service structured, component-based, deployable and can be combined with personalization engines, e-commerce engines, search services, and analytics platforms for total experience. Composable services enable companies to create their digital ecosystems however they see fit for flexibility and scalability opening the gates to digital success.

Conclusion: Building a Future-Proof Content Architecture

The combination of headless CMS solutions and static site generators is the future of content delivery performance, scale, flexibility, and sustainability drive the architecture behind this collaborative experience for content creators and developers, each working autonomously without disruption and employing processes and systems best suited for functions. Developers can create a flexible, component-based build approach to sites rendering compiled content to deliver ultimate performance; content creators can build expected content models and edit/publish content without waiting on engineering releases.

This solution eases the dependency of a monolithic CMS by removing the presentation layer and content delivery mechanism to allow for teams to get the best solutions for their purposes. Best-of-Breed approaches can be chosen; global deployment via CDNs can be accomplished; modular builds can be constructed that are easily accessed and adjusted to constantly changing business needs. The integration with static site generators allows sites to pre-render HTML pages with data from the CMS and push the output to the edge, meaning sub-second load times occur, overhead decreases, and security increases when requests do not need server-side rendering.

Moreover, this architecture is ideally suited to CI/CD/DevOps/GitOps functionality. Webhooks allow for automatic rebuilds or deployment to production CI/CD pipelines during development meaning production can automatically deploy in seconds. Every content update is part of the holistic workflow testable and traceable resulting in better quality, rollbacks, and increased visibility into how organizations have used content over time. Additional versioning control for content types, schema definitions, etc. integrate content delivery into the software development lifecycle, resulting in a collaborative approach between devs and content creators.

Finally, performance is critical in a world based on expectation doused with performance frustration. Not only must information deliver quickly, but it must also be responsive; localization, A/B testing, personalization, and responsive cross-device capabilities must be considered for performance delivery but all are easier to manage at compile time or edge runtime when teams work with structured content. It's easier to support anything from marketing sites to product documentation to e-commerce sites and PWAs.

In short, the architecture supports the pillars of resilient, successful digital experiences that are automatically future-ready. Organizations are better prepared to quickly scale in ever-changing environments where new channels develop, new frameworks become preferred, and new audiences expect next-level engagement. Thinking of code as content is not a fad or trend; it's current best practices the building block of a modern composable web where every team can benefit in the present and digital experiences that can stand the test of time in the future.