Headless CMS Integration Patterns
A developer-focused resource for connecting headless CMS platforms to modern frontend frameworks — covering data fetching, caching, previews, localization and SEO.
What this is
Connecting a headless CMS to a modern frontend is rarely a single API call. Content lives behind GraphQL or REST schemas, travels through build pipelines, edge caches and client state managers, and finally has to render fast, stay fresh, and be editable in preview. Headless CMS Integration Patterns is a developer-focused resource that collects the production patterns behind that pipeline.
Every guide here is written for the people doing the work — frontend developers, content teams, agency engineers and Jamstack builders. You'll find architectural tradeoffs, copy-pasteable code, and the operational details (caching, invalidation, previews, localization, SEO) that decide whether an integration holds up in production.
Browse by section below. Each section opens onto deep-dive subtopics and hands-on, framework-level guides.
Platforms covered: ContentfulSanityStrapiDirectusStoryblokHygraph
Explore the content
- Architecture & Platform Selection Choose the right headless CMS and model content for scale — GraphQL vs REST, federation, multi-tenancy, governance and compliance. Browse section
- Data Fetching & Caching Production-ready fetching and multi-tier caching: ISR, SWR, React Query, Apollo, CDN routing and automated testing. Browse section
- Preview & Draft Workflows Live preview, draft state, token-based auth, webhook rebuilds, legacy decoupling and accessible preview editors. Browse section
- Localization & SEO Multilingual routing, locale detection, hreflang, content fallbacks, metadata automation, sitemaps, Core Web Vitals and image pipelines. Browse section
- Platform Deep Dives Hands-on integration guides for Contentful, Sanity, Strapi, Directus, Storyblok and Hygraph with modern frontend frameworks. Browse section
Recently added
New topics and in-depth guides: two more CMS platforms, hreflang and locale routing for multilingual sites, and zero-downtime schema changes.
- Storyblok Visual Editor Integration Block components mapped to code, secure Visual Editor previews, relation resolution, signed webhooks and generated types. Read the guide
- Hygraph GraphQL Content Federation Content stages for drafts, signed webhooks, paginating large collections and remote sources for commerce data. Read the guide
- Hreflang Tag Generation Translation clusters, reciprocal annotations, regional variants and x-default, delivered in heads or sitemaps. Read the guide
- Locale Detection & Edge Routing Suggesting a language without redirect traps, crawler-safe routing and cache keys at the edge. Read the guide
- Upgrading Strapi 4 to 5 for Headless Frontends The flattened response format, documentId and a phased cutover with the compatibility header. Read the guide
- Contentful Environment Aliases Migrate content models in a cloned environment and switch production atomically, with rollback. Read the guide