What it is

agntcms is a Next.js framework for content sites driven by Claude Code Desktop. Inside is a working headless CMS — drafts, version history, asset management, an inline-edit UI, section replace — plus a set of Claude Code skills the agent uses to drive all of it end-to-end.

You talk to Claude; Claude calls the skills; the skills call the framework; the preview refreshes. Skills first, files second, agent at the centre.

Take everything headless CMS got right for content sites, throw out the rest, and sit the whole thing on Claude Code as the primary interface.

Why

Every major headless CMS now ships "AI" — but the agent is a third-party client calling an API designed for a human editor. Schemas, queries, permissions, editorial workflow — all of it predates the agent.

agntcms inverts the architecture. The agent is the primary actor in the system; the human plugs in through it, not around it. Skills are first-class API; the inline-edit UI is the secondary surface for clicks, not the primary one for intent.

The economics follow. MIT-licensed, self-hosted, no per-seat pricing. No 48-content-type ceiling, no locale paywall, no $40K/year for 50 editors. Deployed as a normal Next.js app — headless-grade capability at the cost of the runtime you were already paying for.

This is for the 90% of content sites — marketing pages, landing pages, corporate resources, content portals — that have been overpaying for an omnichannel architecture they never used. Not for 50-person editorial teams with five-tier approval flows; that case stays with traditional headless.

The full argument is in the manifesto — From Headless to Agent-Native.

Quickstart

The path agntcms is designed around is a Claude Code conversation, not a CLI dance.

1. Open Claude Code Desktop in an empty folder.

2. Send Claude this message (replace my-site with your project name):

Create a new project based on the agntcms framework — https://agntcms.com.
Project name: my-site.

Claude reads the site, runs the scaffolding command, installs dependencies, and syncs the skills from @agntcms/skills into .claude/skills/. When it is done you have a running demo — roughly thirty section types and a handful of content pages — and a directory Claude Code already understands.

Manual fallback

If you want to run the CLI yourself, it is the same command Claude would run:

npx create-agntcms-app@latest my-site
cd my-site
pnpm dev

You still need Claude Code for everything after this — it is not optional, just deferred.

What you get out of the box

• A working Next.js + headless-CMS template. Standard App Router. Running demo in two minutes.
• Drafts and version history. Every edit lands in content/drafts/<slug>.json first; publishing moves it to content/pages/<slug>.json and writes a timestamped snapshot to content/history/<slug>/. Rollback is one skill call. Drafts are committed to git, so switching machines or handing off never loses work.
• Asset management. Files live under public/assets/<sha256>.<ext>. Filenames are content hashes — identical uploads deduplicate automatically and cache invalidation is free.
• Inline-edit UI. Toggle preview mode and every editable text and image gains a hover outline. Click to edit in place; drop back into Claude Code for bigger jobs.
• Section replace. Each section has a swap action that hands the slot to a different section type and fills in sensible defaults from the new schema.
• 22 Claude Code skills (@agntcms/skills). One skill per operation — create page, edit a single field, replace a section, publish, roll back, rename a slug, scaffold a new section type, migrate from a Claude Design bundle. The agent picks the skill from the task; you do not memorise names.
• A frozen production build. Admin, inline-edit UI, and the agent channel are all stripped from production via .dev.ts route suffixes. Visitors get a plain, fast Next.js app with no AI runtime dependency.

Project structure

An agntcms project is a normal Next.js project with three zones. The boundary between them decides whether the next framework update applies cleanly or turns into a three-day merge.

A section type lives under agntcms/sections/<Name>/ (index.ts, schema.ts, component.tsx) and is registered with two lines in agntcms/config.ts — registration is always explicit.

Stack

Three pieces, all required, none configurable — a deliberate choice, so the agent can sit deeper than any plugin could.

• Next.js (15+). Your site is a normal App Router project. Deploy anywhere Next.js runs.
• @agntcms/next and @agntcms/skills. The runtime — domain model, storage adapters, React components, HTTP handlers — and the agent's skills. Both ship in lockstep; update them together.
• Claude Code Desktop. The primary editing surface. Without it, the framework is just Next.js — no agent, no skills, no AI-native flow.

Requirements: Node.js ≥ 20, pnpm ≥ 9, git.

Documentation

Full docs live at agntcms.com/docs.

• What is agntcms — the core idea
• Install → Explore the demo → Setup a personalised project
• Concepts and Architecture
• Project structure · Creating sections · Skills

About this repository

This is the source for agntcms itself — a pnpm + Turborepo monorepo. packages/ holds the three published packages: @agntcms/next (the runtime), @agntcms/skills (the Claude Code skills), and create-agntcms-app (the scaffolding CLI). template/ is the reference project the CLI generates from. Build everything with pnpm build and run the template locally with pnpm template:dev.

Roadmap

Deliberately short — v1 just shipped, and the rest will be shaped by what people actually run into.

• Next: a proper Postgres adapter — drafts, history, and admin endpoints behaving exactly as on the filesystem adapter, with no changes to section code or skills.
• After that — TBD by community and release feedback.

See the full roadmap.

Contributing

agntcms is open source and the diagnosis behind it is a public argument. If it matched your experience, there is a concrete way to participate:

• Open an issue for a concrete edge you hit in a real project.
• Start a discussion for design questions and patterns worth pulling into the framework.
• Send a PR.

Every open task and comment moves the next item on the roadmap.

License

MIT. A framework, not a service — self-hosted, no per-seat pricing, no vendor lock-in.