Introduction

Aphex is a headless CMS built with SvelteKit and Svelte 5. It takes inspiration from Sanity's schema-driven approach while being fully database-agnostic through a ports and adapters architecture.

The fastest way to try it is with the create-aphex scaffolder:

pnpm create aphex
# or: npm create aphex@latest

Head to Getting Started for the full walkthrough.

Key Features

• Schema-driven — define your content model with TypeScript. Get a full admin UI, REST API, GraphQL API, and database schema automatically.
• Database-agnostic — ships with PostgreSQL via Drizzle ORM. Bring your own adapter for any database.
• SvelteKit-native — runs as part of your SvelteKit app. No separate server to manage.
• Draft / published workflow — auto-save every couple of seconds, hash-based change detection, one-click publish.
• Version history — every draft save and publish is captured. Editors can preview and restore any prior version.
• Singletons — mark a schema as singleton: true to model global content (site nav, footer, settings) as a single auto-resolving row.
• Multi-tenancy — organizations with PostgreSQL row-level security and a parent / child hierarchy.
• Capability-based access control — edit built-in roles, define custom roles per organization, and gate schemas / fields by role or policy function.
• Authentication — Better Auth integration with email + password, API keys, and email-verified sign-up.
• S3-compatible storage — AWS S3, Cloudflare R2, MinIO, or local filesystem.
• Hono-powered HTTP layer — register custom routes and middleware via the api(app) config hook.
• Email — Resend or any SMTP provider via the Nodemailer adapter; Mailpit by default in dev.

Architecture

Aphex follows a hexagonal (ports & adapters) architecture. The core engine (@aphexcms/cms-core) defines interfaces for database, storage, authentication, email, and cache. Separate packages provide implementations:

Next Steps