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How to Build a Headless Site with SheerCMS — Step-by-Step

Overview

This guide shows a concise, practical workflow to build a headless site using SheerCMS as the content management layer and any frontend (e.g., Next.js, Gatsby, Nuxt, or plain static HTML) to consume content via SheerCMS’s JSON/REST endpoints.

1) Plan content model

• Identify content types: pages, blog posts, authors, collections, settings.
• Define fields: title, slug, body (Markdown/HTML), publish date, featured image, tags, SEO meta.
• Decide relationships: post → author, post → tags, collection → items.

2) Install and configure SheerCMS

• Install: add SheerCMS to your project per its docs (usually npm/yarn).
• Project structure: create a content directory (e.g., /content) and a templates directory for any server-side rendering tasks.
• Config: set base URL, API endpoint settings, build output directory, and any auth for editorial features.

3) Create content and templates

• Write content files: create Markdown or JSON files for each content item using the defined fields and frontmatter.
• Organize folders: use logical folders per content type (e.g., /content/posts, /content/pages).
• Templates (optional): add SheerCMS templates if you want server-side generation of JSON endpoints or HTML previews.

4) Expose content via API

• JSON endpoints: ensure SheerCMS is configured to generate JSON for content collections (e.g., /api/posts.json, /api/pages/{slug}.json).
• Custom endpoints: create simple scripts/templates if you need custom aggregated endpoints (tags index, archives).

5) Build the frontend

• Choose framework: Next.js/Gatsby/Eleventy/Vite + your preferred library.
• Fetch content: at build time (SSG) or runtime (SSR/SPA) fetch SheerCMS JSON endpoints. Use fetch/axios or framework data APIs (getStaticProps/getServerSideProps).
• Routing: map slugs to pages; generate static routes from the posts/pages JSON.
• Render content: convert Markdown to HTML if needed; use components for lists, single pages, author cards, SEO tags.

6) Implement preview and draft workflows

• Preview: configure SheerCMS preview endpoints and frontend preview routes to render draft content via an authenticated preview token.
• Drafts: manage draft files or a drafts flag in frontmatter; ensure build process can include drafts when previewing.

7) Add search, pagination, and filtering

• Search: implement client-side search with lunr/elasticlunr or use a hosted search service.
• Pagination: generate paginated index pages at build time.
• Filtering: provide tag/category filters using prebuilt tag indexes from SheerCMS endpoints.

8) Deploy and automate

• CI/CD: set up builds on push using GitHub Actions, Netlify, Vercel, or similar.
• Webhooks: trigger frontend rebuilds from SheerCMS on content changes.
• CDN: serve static assets via CDN for performance.

9) Optimize and secure

• Caching: use HTTP caching and CDN rules for JSON endpoints and built pages.
• Images: optimize and serve responsive images using srcset or an image service.
• Rate limiting & auth: protect preview endpoints and any admin APIs.

10) Monitor and maintain

• Logging: track build errors and endpoint failures.
• Backups: keep content in Git or regular backups.
• Updates: periodically update dependencies and SheerCMS.

Example Minimal Workflow (Next.js + SheerCMS)

1. Create content in /content/posts/.md with frontmatter.
2. Configure SheerCMS to output /api/posts.json.
3. In getStaticPaths, fetch posts.json to generate paths.
4. In getStaticProps, fetch post JSON by slug and render.
5. Deploy to Vercel and set a webhook to rebuild on content changes.

If you want, I can generate:

• a sample content frontmatter template,
• example Next.js getStaticProps/getStaticPaths code,