CMS collections: content you edit without rebuilding the site
Some content changes every week: a menu, news, upcoming events, new work. Anticode keeps it in collections, per project, each with fields you define. You edit entries in the dashboard, a section of the page lists them, and every entry also gets its own page on the published site. Model-written apps can show the same collections, read-only.
Content that changes shouldn't live in the design
If this week's specials are written into a page's HTML, changing them means editing the page, which risks the layout and needs someone who knows where to look. Website builder CMS collections separate the two. The design decides how a list of dishes or posts looks; the collection holds the dishes or posts. The person updating the menu never sees the stylesheet, and the designer never has to retype prices.
Collections and their fields
Start a collection from a preset (Blog, Team, Products) or from blank, give it a name, and choose its fields. A project can have up to twenty collections, each with up to twenty-four fields. The first text field is each entry's title.
| Type | Holds | Shown as |
|---|---|---|
| Text | A short line, up to 500 characters | Plain text; the first one is the title |
| Rich text (Markdown) | Longer writing with headings, lists and links | Formatted text on the entry's page |
| Number | A price, size or count | Formatted with thousands separators |
| Date | A day such as 2026-11-04 | A readable date like 4 Nov 2026 |
| Image URL | An https:// address of a picture | An image on the entry's page |
| Reference | The address of an entry in another collection | A link to that entry, such as a dish pointing at its supplier |
Fields can be required. If you change a collection's fields later, Anticode checks every existing entry still fits and tells you which one doesn't before saving. Each entry also has its own address (lower-case letters, numbers and dashes) and an optional search title and description for its page. How many entries a project holds depends on your plan.
Showing a collection on the page
Map a collection onto a section and the design engine lists its newest entries in the site's own type and colour, as a list, a grid or cards, twelve by default. Everything from a collection is escaped as text, image addresses must be https, and each item links to its own entry page. The section is filled from the data when the page is built, so after adding entries you publish again for the homepage list to catch up; no model build is needed for that.
A page for every entry
- /<collection>/
- An index of the collection's entries, newest first, on the published site.
- /<collection>/<entry>
- One page per entry, in the site's design, with its fields laid out: rich text formatted, images shown, references linked.
- Search
- Each entry page uses its own search title and description if you set them, and entry pages are listed in the site's sitemap.xml.
A separate page with the same address wins, so a collection called about won't hide your About page. A few names such as api, assets and sitemap are reserved.
Collections in model-written apps
An app the model writes, such as a restaurant's interactive menu or a portfolio with filters, can declare the collections it shows. Its starting entries become yours to edit in the dashboard, and the server places a read-only copy of the current entries in the page each time it is served. The app can't change them: inside its sandbox the content is data in, never a request out, and visitors only ever see what's in your collections. If the model adds or changes the declared entries during a later change, those reach your collections automatically.
What collections aren't
- Not a full blog engine. Collections can hold posts, but there are no comments, no RSS feed and no scheduled publishing. An entry appears when you save it.
- No visitor-submitted content. Visitors read collections; they can't add to them. Form submissions are kept separately.
- No roles per collection. Anyone who can edit the project can edit its collections. For clients who should only touch content, see letting clients update website content.
- Image hosting by address. An image field holds an https:// URL rather than an upload, so the picture needs to live somewhere public.
Questions people ask
Do I need to rebuild the site after editing an entry?
No model build is needed. Entry pages, collection indexes and apps read the current entries as they are served. A collection section on a design-engine page is filled when the page is built, so publish again to update that list.
Can I use a collection as a blog?
Yes, with a Blog preset of title, body, date and cover image. Each post gets its own page and sitemap entry; there are no comments, RSS or scheduling.
Can an AI assistant edit my collections?
Collections are edited in Anticode's dashboard. Collection sections aren't rendered when publishing through the MCP server, so publish those projects from the builder.
What happens to collections if I export to Next.js?
An app's collection content is saved into the export as a JSON file, so the exported project starts with your current entries.