Introduction

Aphex is a CMS built with SvelteKit and Svelte 5, taking its schema-driven approach from Sanity. It runs inside your SvelteKit app rather than beside it: the same app that serves your site serves the admin, so content is read through a typed function call instead of a network hop, and live preview is a component render rather than an integration.

The architecture is ports-and-adapters, so the database is a choice rather than an assumption. Two adapters are meant for real use: PostgreSQL (Drizzle ORM) and SQLite/libsql (local file: databases and Turso). They are peers, not tiers — both run the same cross-dialect conformance suite, and SQLite is not a reduced version of the product.

A third, PGlite (embedded Postgres, no server), exists for automated tests: it gives the test suite Postgres semantics — row-level security included — with nothing to install. It is not recommended for development or production; its on-disk storage has proven prone to corruption. Develop against the database you deploy on.

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

pnpm create aphex@latest
# 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 — PostgreSQL (Drizzle ORM) and SQLite/libsql (local files and Turso) behind one DatabaseAdapter contract. Switching is a config change. PGlite is available too, but for tests rather than dev or production.
• SvelteKit-native — runs as part of your SvelteKit app. No separate server to manage.
• Visual editing — live preview with stega-encoded click-to-edit overlays, so an editor clicks the text on the page to edit the field behind it.
• Portable Text rich content — a TipTap-backed block editor with custom block types, inline objects, marks, and annotations.
• Events & durable jobs — an append-only event log, transactional outbox, and DB-backed queue with leases, backoff and dead-lettering; powers scheduled publishing and plugin event consumers.
• AI built in — an in-admin assistant and a Streamable HTTP MCP server for clients like Claude Code, sharing one capability-filtered tool set.
• 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