Building in public

For a couple of weeks (months?) now, I have been playing around with the idea of a small API-first headless CMS. I started forming building blocks and planning they way it would look and behave.

Initially it started off with curiousity around the logic behind what a headless CMS is; I was already familiar with coupled CMS' thanks to my previous work on SlantedPress — so this time, I was keen on working out what a headless approach would be (if I were to build one from the ground up). So I started architecting, designing, and moulding an API.

When I first started thinking about this project, I knew I wanted the process to be product-driven, and from that I had planned to make the entire product React-hook-driven. When designing the initial design around some basic use-cases, I figured I wanted to try and make a powerful API and then have a bunch of React-hooks that could consume the endpoints and be super-easy-to-use™

Recently however, Vercel and the Next.js team released Next.js 13; along with it came the introduction to the app directory. Find out more about it on their blog. As part of this release, they also introduced Server Components to the Next.js ecosystem - which cannot make use of hooks.

Im excited about this release, but at the same time feeling a little knocked-back as all of the ideas I had would now need to be reformed if I was to make use of the latest Next.js 13 had to offer.

My hopes for this project is to get a better understanding of patterns and the logic behind headless CMS', push myself to become better at marketing my skills (we both know I suck at this!), and maybe make some connections along the way 😉

Im looking forward to seeing what I can come up with and intend to fully work through this in public - so watch out for updates both on here, and the bird app!

Until then... ✌🏽