About WollyCMS

The self-hosted, open source headless CMS built for Astro.

The Origin Story

Why WollyCMS exists

Astro gives developers an incredible platform for building fast, content-driven sites. But content management was still a developer-only job. WollyCMS bridges that gap — giving non-developers the power to build and maintain Astro sites with the same content modeling flexibility you get from enterprise CMS platforms, without the complexity.

  • Content editors manage pages, blocks, and menus — no code needed
  • Developers define the structure, editors fill in the content
  • Enterprise-grade composition model in a lightweight package
  • Self-hosted, open source, deploy anywhere
The Vision 
class="text-slate-500">// Developer defines the structure once:
class=class="text-amber-400">"text-sky-400">const blogPost = {
  type: class="text-amber-400">"blog_post",
  regions: [class="text-amber-400">"hero", class="text-amber-400">"content", class="text-amber-400">"sidebar"],
  fields: [class="text-amber-400">"author", class="text-amber-400">"date", class="text-amber-400">"category"]
}

class="text-slate-500">// Content editors do the rest:
class="text-slate-500">// - Create pages class=class="text-amber-400">"text-sky-400">from any page type
class="text-slate-500">// - Drag blocks into regions
class="text-slate-500">// - Edit content visually
class="text-slate-500">// - Manage menus and navigation
class="text-slate-500">// - Publish on their own schedule
class="text-slate-500">//
class="text-slate-500">// No pull requests. No deploys.
class="text-slate-500">// Just log in and publish.
Hono
API Server
Fast, lightweight, runs on Workers and Node.js
Drizzle
ORM
SQLite or PostgreSQL — your choice per environment
SvelteKit
Admin UI
Visual page builder with live preview
TypeScript
Everywhere
Strict mode, ESM, fully typed API responses

Built with Claude Code

AI-assisted development from line one

The entire CMS — API server, admin UI, Astro integration, visual page builder, 200+ tests — was built through conversation-driven programming with Claude Code.

Conversation-Driven Architecture

Every feature started as a conversation about what the right abstraction should be. Claude Code helped design the content model, API structure, and component patterns.

200+ Tests from Day One

Content API, admin endpoints, accessibility, SEO validation — all built alongside the features they test. AI-assisted development made comprehensive testing practical, not aspirational.

Proof of What is Possible

WollyCMS demonstrates that AI coding tools can produce production-grade software with clean architecture, not just prototypes and demos.

Open Source

MIT licensed, no strings attached

WollyCMS is free and open source. No vendor lock-in, no usage fees, no tracking. Your content stays on your servers. Fork it, modify it, deploy it however you want.

  • MIT license — use it for anything, commercial or personal
  • Self-hosted — your data never touches a third-party server
  • No telemetry, no analytics, no phone-home
  • Contributions welcome on GitHub
Terminal 
$ npx create-wolly my-site
  Creating project in ./my-site...

$ cd my-site
$ npm run migrate && npm run seed
$ npm run dev

  WollyCMS running at http:class="text-slate-500">//localhost:4321
  Admin UI at http:class="text-slate-500">//localhost:4321/admin

# Your CMS. Your server. Your data.
# No account required. No API keys to manage.
# Just npm install and go.
View on GitHub