Smart-Site v4.0.1

SmartSite 4.0.1 — ordinary Payload code, reliable publishing, portable upgrades

SmartSite 4.0 makes the website easier to understand and extend. Collections, globals, fields and hooks live in ordinary Payload modules, assembled explicitly in src/payload.config.ts. Every standalone site owns its complete source, documentation and agent skills.

• Replaces the protected admin layer and configuration resolver with direct Payload composition. src/admin contains the CMS interface; website routing, caching, rendering and search live in src/website.
• Preserves nested routes, reusable templates, sections, native Payload MCP, editorial controls and existing content shapes.
• Makes website refresh work durable, with bounded batches, interruption recovery and explicit cache acknowledgement. Route changes also keep search addresses and text current.
• Keeps ordinary publishing independent of scheduled services. Sites can explicitly enable native scheduled publishing and periodic recovery when needed, with the documented runner; no hosted cron is enabled by default. Without an opted-in runner, interrupted refresh work can be recovered by an authenticated administrator.
• Includes a versioned upgrade kit for 3.0.0 and 3.0.1: inspection, source reconciliation, type-preserving database backup and verified restore, resumable application, preservation checks and rollback instructions.
• Updates the standalone documentation and Codex/Claude skills for the native structure and pinned Payload API.
• Restores space above the website for the logged-in admin bar, including narrow layouts.
• Enforces native document, field and breadcrumb access in draft previews, and safely recovers preview cookies left by an older build.
• Handles Next.js 16 sitemap identifiers correctly and verifies published, renamed and unpublished URLs in real XML.
• Stops the local app and its owned child workers together while protecting unrelated processes.
• Allows the verified local CMS its bounded first-compilation startup window, while still failing on real HTTP errors, process loss or a missed deadline.
• Preserves Docker uploads across application replacement and documents existing-volume migration.
• Keeps database URLs and other build environment values literal and private through the self-hosted prebuilt-image workflow.

Existing sites should follow docs/upgrades/4.0.0/UPGRADE.md. The kit keeps its 4.0 architecture path and targets the published 4.0.1 artifact. This is a source-structure upgrade: do not replace an existing site's database, regenerate its identity or copy a new admin folder over custom code. Rehearse against a verified restore and retain the original source and media before production cutover.

The blank starter remains separate from the Elvora showcase. Neither the monorepo nor an external SmartSite package is required to run an exported site.

Pinned application baseline: Payload 3.92.0, Next.js 16.3.3, Node.js 24.22.1 and pnpm 10.34.8. MongoDB is the verified upgrade path; native Windows startup and multi-instance self-hosted invalidation are outside this release's supported topology.

Validation includes fresh and upgraded standalone sites, rollback, independent Codex and Claude sessions, Vercel/Blob and local S3-compatible storage. Cloudinary and UploadThing retain their adapter configuration but were not externally verified for this release.