Basic Steps

This tutorial guides you through the steps for adding Decap CMS to a site that's built with a common static site generator, like Jekyll, Hugo, Hexo, or Gatsby. Alternatively, you can start from a template or dive right into configuration options. The process for adding Decap CMS to a static site can be divided into four main steps:

1. Install Decap CMS

This is a single page app available at the /admin route of your website. Check out the general overview to see what the installation process entails.

2. Choosing a Backend

The most common backends are GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Azure. The backend serves two purpose: Secure access to your website's Decap CMS and allows it to read and update content files in your git repo. More information about configuring the backend can be found here.

If you are experimenting with Decap CMS or developing, you can connect to it via a local Git repository instead of a remote backend.

3. Configure Decap CMS

The basic configuration includes required information like Git backend provider, branch, and collections to save files to. It is recommended to start simple as possible. Once you've gotten the hang of it, you can edit your config.yml file to build whatever collections and content modeling you want.

Check out the Configuration Options page for full details about all available options.

4. Access Your Content

Decap CMS manages your content and provides editorial and admin features via a webpage in a browser, but it doesn't deliver content. Decap CMS only makes your content available through an API. It is up to developers to determine how to build the raw content into something useful and delightful on the frontend within your static site generator.