An open alternative to WordPress plugins and Webflow lock-in:
Visual editing, a real CMS, and an AI engineer in Astro.

Quick start ⌁ Runtimes ⌁ Capabilities ⌁ Docs ⌁ Contributing

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✦ Quick start

Deploy Aria to Cloudflare in one click, or run it locally with Node and SQLite.

Deploy to Cloudflare

1. Click the Deploy to Cloudflare button above.
2. Accept the generated Worker, D1, KV, R2, Queue, Durable Object, and optional Workers AI resources. Give the two KV namespaces distinct titles (e.g. aria-cache and aria-session) — the form cannot prefill them.
3. Open /admin/setup on the live site, create the first administrator, and complete first-launch setup.

One-click runs the deploy script: migrate D1, build the Worker, bootstrap the secrets Aria needs to boot (Site API keyring + OAuth), and ship it. You land on a blank site — finish at /admin/setup. Redeploys keep your content and won't rotate keys that are already live. Optional pieces (email encryption, Turnstile, custom-domain analytics, webhooks) are deliberately configured after deployment and never block first boot. See the Cloudflare deployment guide for prerequisites and manual deploy.

The deployment template also declares a few bindings and triggers the Deploy button does not list as generated resources — Cloudflare Images (media transforms degrade gracefully without an entitlement), the Cache API, and a 5-minute cron trigger. None of them block first boot.

Workers Builds settings: the Deploy flow auto-detects build and deploy scripts from package.json and pre-fills both fields — keep the deploy command as npm run deploy (it migrates D1, then builds). You can clear the build command to skip a redundant second build; leaving it pre-filled is safe, just slower. The default non-production deploy (wrangler versions upload) skips migrations and secret bootstrap, so preview deploys can lag behind on schema and secrets.

Optional Studio traffic metrics

The Deploy button cannot create a least-privileged Cloudflare API token or choose a DNS zone for you. A new workers.dev URL does not belong to one of your account's zones, so finish this setup after connecting a Cloudflare-managed custom domain:

1. Create a dedicated Zone Analytics token, restrict it to the site's zone, and grant Zone → Analytics → Read. Zone → Zone → Read is optional and only lets Aria verify that the configured zone matches the site domain.
2. Copy the domain's Zone ID.
3. In Workers & Pages → your Aria Worker → Settings → Variables and Secrets, add ARIA_CLOUDFLARE_ANALYTICS_TOKEN as an encrypted secret and ARIA_CLOUDFLARE_ZONE_ID as a plain-text variable, then deploy the new Worker version.
4. Set Aria's Site URL to the custom-domain URL and enable Show Cloudflare metrics in Aria Builder under Analytics settings.

Existing deployments that use ARIA_CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN remain compatible, but the dedicated analytics token is preferred because it can be limited to read-only analytics access. Sites that stay on workers.dev can use Cloudflare's Worker metrics dashboard instead.

Run locally

Requirements: Node.js >= 22.18.0 and npm.

git clone https://github.com/ariabuilder/aria.git
cd aria
npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:4321/admin and complete first-run setup at /admin/setup.

For Cloudflare binding parity (D1, KV, R2, and Workers), run:

npm run dev:edge

Local setup · Edge development

✦ Choose a runtime

	Cloudflare	Node + SQLite
Runs on	Workers with D1, KV, R2, Queues, Durable Objects, and optional Workers AI	Your PC, VPS, Docker, Railway, or another Node host
Best for	Edge delivery and Cloudflare-native services	Local development, self-hosting, and straightforward deployments
Start with	npm run dev:edge locally; npm run deploy for production	npm run dev

The same Astro project, Astro Actions, and StorageAdapter run in both modes.
See storage and runtimes for the architecture and trade-offs.

✦ What Aria Builder includes

Capability	What it enables
Studio & Composer	Edit the real page on a visual canvas, with Inspector controls, responsive viewports, and optimistic updates. Explore Composer →
CMS & collections	Define structured content, schemas, templates, relations, drafts, and revisions without a separate CMS product. Explore collections →
Design system & motion	Author tokens, semantic classes, fonts, and motion visually; publish only the CSS each page needs. Design system → Motion →
AI Engineer & MCP	Plan, create, and publish with an agent and external tools that honor the same role permissions as Studio. Explore Agent & MCP →
Site API	Connect site-local automations through policy-aware REST endpoints for CMS collection and entry workflows. Site API credentials are scoped to the site and use Aria's authorization model.
Auth & security	Use sessions, TOTP, roles, capabilities, audit logging, rate limiting, and login protection built into Aria. Authentication → Security →
Email	Send password resets and transactional messages through Cloudflare Email, SMTP, or a local preview sink. Explore email →
SEO & publishing	Publish with sitemaps, feeds, redirects, JSON-LD, crawler guidance, and site-health tools. SEO → Publishing →
Runtime & storage	Keep code portable while choosing SQLite locally or Cloudflare D1, KV, and R2 at the edge. Storage and runtimes →
Ownership & export	Download a clean Astro project, including your pages, components, design system, and CMS data. Export and import →

✦ Why Aria exists

The job has not changed: ship a site, manage content, and iterate on design.
Aria Builder combines visual editing with an Astro codebase and a runtime you control.

	The old way	Aria
Foundation	Theme and plugin layers across several products	One Astro project with Studio, content, design, and publishing
Content	A posts table plus add-ons	Structured collections with schemas and visual templates
Design	Theme options that drift	A canonical design system shared by previews, publishing, and export
AI	A disconnected chat sidebar	An agent and MCP server with the same capabilities as a user
Ownership	Hosting and export restrictions	A project you can run, deploy, and export yourself

✦ Ownership and architecture

Aria separates code deployment, schema migrations, and content promotion.
A builder update does not overwrite live pages or settings unless you explicitly promote content.

The Studio export creates a clean Astro project you can take elsewhere. For deployment, media storage, content promotion, and environment configuration, use the Cloudflare deployment guide, content-sync guide, and environment-variable reference.

Technical details for contributors, including the generated inline-SVG icon pipeline, are documented in the platform architecture.

✦ Status and roadmap

Aria is pre-launch and under active development.

Webhook automation, third-party OAuth, Figma integration, and plugins are not currently available and are currently being developed.

See ROADMAP.md for publicly planned work.

✦ Documentation

Start with Aria docs for setup, deployment, Studio workflows, and contributor architecture.

Documentation will be expanded on as we progress with development. Expect full step by step guides, video tutorials, and more.

Resource	What it covers
Deployment	Cloudflare setup, migrations, bindings, and content after deploy
Architecture	Platform boundaries and extension points
SECURITY.md	Private vulnerability reporting
TRADEMARKS.md	Name, logo, and fork-branding rules

✦ Contributing and support

Contributions are welcome, especially around Composer UX, blocks, and tests. Read CONTRIBUTING.md, review the contributor documentation, and open an issue before substantial architectural changes. Support expectations are in SUPPORT.md.

Bundled front-end asset notices, including Outfit under the SIL OFL 1.1, are listed in Acknowledgements.

Built for creators.

Apache-2.0 | See LICENSE | Trademarks | Acknowledgements