Getting started with Netlify CMS

Pages recently integrated support for Netlify CMS, an open source content management system for your Github-based content that provides editors with a friendly UI and workflow.

Building a new site from template

The Pages templates include pre-configured Netlify CMS functionality. To begin utilizing:

select the template that you wish to use as your base site
navigate to the new GitHub repository that Pages created, and update the Netlify CMS configuration to point to the current repository

    # 11ty: /admin/config.yml
    # Gatsby or Hugo: /static/admin/config.yml

    backend:
      ...
      repo: <your github org>/<your repo>
      ...

when you are done, your configuration should look something like the one in configuration requirements
once your site is rebuilt in Pages, Netlify CMS is ready to use! Navigate to https://<your site url>/admin and edit away.

Adding Netlify CMS to existing site

If your site is already up and running, please follow the instructions on Netlify’s Add To Your Site page to add Netlify CMS. Please pay particular attention to the location of the admin folder depending on your static site generator.

11ty: /admin/config.yml
Gatsby or Hugo: /static/admin/config.yml

For examples of existing configurations, see the Pages starter:

Configuration Requirements

To use Netlify CMS, you must authenticate with Github, and in order for Pages to facilitate this, your Netlify CMS configuration should include the following:

    backend:
      name: github
      repo: <your org>/<your repo>
      base_url: https://pages.cloud.gov
      auth_endpoint: external/auth/github
      preview_context: pages/build
      branch: main


      # optional
      use_graphql: true
    ...

See Netlify CMS Backends Overview for a full description of the configuration options.

Authentication Requirements

Because Pages facilitates the authentication with Github, we require users of Netlify CMS to be Pages users in addition to having write permissions to the Github repository.

Getting familiar with Netlify CMS

To learn more about Netlify CMS and how it may help you manage content changes on your Pages site, please visit netlifycms.org/

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