What is NikolaCMS?
NikolaCMS is an experiment in rethinking how content management works. Instead of a traditional CMS with an admin panel, dashboards, and a database, everything here is managed through Claude Code — Anthropic's AI-powered CLI tool.
The idea is simple: files are the database. Markdown files with YAML frontmatter hold all the content. Conventions (documented in CONVENTIONS.md) are the API. Claude Code is the interface.
Why build it this way?
A few reasons:
- Speed — static output means fast pages everywhere, served from Cloudflare's global CDN
- Simplicity — no server, no database, no admin panel to maintain or secure
- Version control — every change is a git commit, fully auditable and reversible
- AI-native — Claude Code understands the conventions and can act as a capable content editor
The architecture
Content lives in content/{locale}/ as plain markdown files. The build pipeline processes each file through:
- Markdown → HTML conversion
- Snippet resolution (e.g.
snippet:mysnippetkeywrapped in double curly braces) - Autolink application
- Injection into Astro layout templates
- Static HTML output
Multilingual content is handled by locale-specific directories (en/, pt/, fr/). UI strings live in i18n/{locale}.yaml.
Getting started
Read CONVENTIONS.md at the root of the repo — it documents everything you need to know about creating content, managing SEO, using snippets, and deploying.
**Ready to get started?** [Contact us today](/en/contact) and we'll help you set everything up.