Articles
Notes from building Total CMS.
What we are learning about flat-file content, AI agents and building sites for clients. Each article is published here first.
All articles
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Making a PHP app legible to AI agents
Coding agents kept inventing functions my CMS never had. The fix was letting each install describe itself over MCP: schemas, content and version-matched docs.
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11 years selling a CMS to web designers. This year I rebuilt it for AI agents.
My CMS's home ecosystem started shrinking, so I rebuilt it to stand alone and work with AI agents. What's worked and what hasn't.
Guides
Choosing a CMS?
The decisions that come before any product choice, checked against each vendor’s own documentation and dated.
All guides- Hosted vs self-hosted Before you choose between Squarespace and Webflow, or between Kirby and Craft, there is a bigger question underneath: do you want to rent a website platform or own the software that runs it? Here is how to decide, from someone with an obvious stake in the answer.
- The best flat-file CMS in 2026 Five flat-file content management systems worth your time, what each is genuinely good at, and where each one will frustrate you.
- A PHP CMS without a database Running a CMS with no MySQL sounds like a corner-cutting exercise.
- WordPress alternatives for freelancers If you build client sites for a living, the CMS decision is really a decision about the next three years of your evenings.
- Making a PHP app legible to AI agents Coding agents invent functions that don't exist because the app can't describe itself.
See if Total CMS fits.
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