cmsfree ✎

A tiny CMS with no backend. Edit your static site in the browser, save straight to your local disk, publish plain HTML that runs anywhere and even commit the published files to github all from your browser.

Add ?edit to any page and a dormant script wakes up, connects to your local project folder (via the browser's File System Access API), and turns the live site into an editor. Your content is just markdown files. There's no server, no database, no lock-in — the published site is static HTML you can host on anything (or push to GitHub Pages with one click).

your-site/
  content/            ← what you edit (markdown + one template.html + _assets)
    index.md
    about-us/index.md
    services/index.md
  publish/            ← generated static site (deploy this anywhere)
  cms.js              ← the ~20 kB "sleeper" (does nothing until ?edit)

How it works

• View — plain static HTML from publish/. Zero JavaScript needed; cms.js just sleeps.
• Edit — visit ?edit. The CMS reads content/ from disk and rebuilds the page in memory: generated nav, live markdown rendering, inline editing, create/rename/delete sections & pages. Nothing is written until you hit Save.
• Publish — regenerates publish/ (one static page per route) from a single content/template.html.
• Deploy — pushes publish/ to GitHub Pages via the GitHub API.

Content model

• A folder under content/ with an index.md is a section (appears in the nav).
• Any other .md in that folder is an unlisted block/page (link to it from content).
• Optional frontmatter: title: and order:. _folders and .files are ignored.
• content/template.html is the single source of layout for every page.

Get started

Requirements: Node.js and a Chromium browser (Chrome/Edge — the File System Access API).

npm install
npm run dev            # dev server with hot-reload (http://localhost:5173)

1. Open http://localhost:5173/?edit
2. Click Connect folder and pick the site root (e.g. example-site/)
3. Edit a page (✎), add a section (＋), etc. → Save (writes to content/)
4. Publish → generates example-site/publish/

npm run build          # bundle the CMS → cms.js (after changing src/)
npm run preview        # serve publish/ on a plain static server (any host works)

Once you've entered edit mode, a small ✎ pins to the top-left of every page so you can jump back in anytime.

Deploy to GitHub Pages

In edit mode, open ⚙ Settings, enter a GitHub token + owner/repo/branch, then hit Deploy. It commits publish/ to the branch (commit message = your prefix + version). Point GitHub Pages at that branch and you're live.

Under the hood

• src/ — the CMS engine (TypeScript), bundled by Vite into a single self-contained cms.js. Vite is only a dev/build tool — nothing depends on it at runtime.
• Markdown via marked; everything else is vanilla DOM + the File System Access API.
• The published site uses relative URLs, so it works at a domain root, a subpath (GitHub project pages), or straight from file://.

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Made for people who want to edit their own site without a dashboard, an account, or a backend.