PayloadCMS Monorepo Setup - Best Practices and Example Projects?

[vqhdev]

Hello everyone! I'm exploring the possibility of setting up PayloadCMS in a monorepo architecture for better project organization and maintainability. Currently, having Payload and Next.js components mixed together in a single repository can get quite messy and confusing as the project grows. A monorepo structure would help separate concerns and make it easier to manage different parts of the application independently, plus provide flexibility for future frontend framework changes.
I noticed there are some existing examples like the Remix-Payload monorepo template and tutorials about Next.js + PayloadCMS + Turborepo setups.
Could anyone share their experience with PayloadCMS monorepo implementations? Are there any recommended example projects or starter templates that demonstrate best practices for this architecture? I'm particularly interested in setups that maintain clear separation between the CMS backend and frontend components.
Any insights, gotchas, or resources would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[lorenzrabs]

i tried to create my first repo too. it went fine with pnpm workspaces. the only problem im facing right now is the build of a docker image (that seems to be not that easy, because you need to incorporate some stuff of the root and also the dependencies from the app). i also saw turborepo, but didnt had time to test it.

[luciovilla]

I originally started setting up a monorepo with 3 apps: Next.js frontend site, Expo Reactive app and Payload CMS. The reason for this was like you posted as well "help separate concerns and make it easier to manage different parts.." but had to update it two apps instead: one for both the frontend site and CMS admin and the other Expo app. The reason for this was when setting up the frontend site, I realized I couldnt use Local API for querying data. This meant that I had to either use REST and GraphQL in my frontend app since in order to use Local API, you have to have both the CMS backend and frontend running in the same server.