Contentful CMS: Lessons from Two Website Builds
Exploring how AES and CrewAI used Contentful for structured content, publishing workflows, and integrating legacy systems.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
- AES and CrewAI implemented Contentful with different composition needs.
- AES achieved editorial independence, cutting update times to minutes.
- CrewAI utilized reusable components integrated with Ghost and GraphQL.
- CMS migrations should retain functional legacy systems when appropriate.
Successfully implementing a headless content management system like Contentful requires more than just system installation; it demands careful content modeling and a clear division of responsibilities between editorial and engineering teams. These principles were highlighted during recent web development projects for the Addiction Education Society (AES) and CrewAI, both of which tackled distinct organizational challenges using the same foundational CMS.
For the Addiction Education Society, the primary requirement was establishing editorial independence. The nonprofit needed its staff to independently update resources, stories, and core pages as educational outreach expanded, all without developer intervention. By creating structured Contentful models for these categories, the team successfully reduced publication timelines from days down to a matter of minutes for time-sensitive initiatives.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
Meanwhile, CrewAI required a more advanced level of page composition to replace a legacy CMS that could no longer support its website requirements. The development team designed reusable Figma components—including hero layouts, pricing sections, feature grids, statistics modules, and tabbed content—and mapped each to structured Contentful models. This enabled marketing teams to assemble pages from modular blocks while engineers maintained control over rendering via GraphQL and strict type safety.
Headless CMS platforms demonstrate that robust content models function as a contract between creators and engineers. While structured type systems require upfront planning and lack built-in visual page builders, they provide foundational consistency for search optimization, analytics integrations, and multi-team collaboration.
Both projects also underscore the operational value of leaving functional legacy systems intact rather than undertaking full-domain replacements. AES kept its active WordPress learning system running while launching a modern marketing platform with Astro and Contentful, ensuring zero downtime for educational programs while granting staff immediate control over public pages.
"List the tasks people perform in each system, then move only the tasks the new architecture is meant to improve."
CrewAI adopted a hybrid approach by transitioning page templates to structured Contentful sections while retaining Ghost as the dedicated writing environment for authors. An automated workflow converts published Ghost articles into Contentful drafts, allowing the marketing team to review metadata, adjust layouts, and schedule publications without disrupting established editorial writing routines.
This automated drafting state serves as a crucial integration point, preventing editorial bottlenecks while ensuring comprehensive review before public release. Ultimately, architecture discussions for any CMS adoption should begin by evaluating editorial handoffs and reuse requirements to determine where platform boundaries truly belong.
Source: Dev.to
Found something wrong in this article? Report an issue with this article
Comments
Leave a Comment