Press

Everything you need to cover Total CMS.

Boilerplate you can paste, a fact sheet that stays current, logos, screenshots, and an email that reaches the person who writes the code. Free to use, no email gate, no approval process.

Download the press kit ZIP, 2.1 MB [email protected]
At a glance
Current version
3.6.1 (September 2026)
First shipped
2015
Licenses deployed
4,500+ (as of August 2026)
Pricing
Standard $195 · Pro $395, one-time, per domain
Company
Aspect Services, LLC · California, USA · founded 2008
Press contact
[email protected]
Full fact sheet Everything as Markdown

Boilerplate

Paste it word for word.

Three lengths; pick the one that fits your word count. Prefer a file? Download the boilerplate, taglines and fact sheet as Markdown, rendered from the same data as this page.

One sentence
Total CMS is a flat-file PHP CMS with a built-in MCP server, letting AI agents build sites and clients edit content through the same permission system, with no database, no subscription, and content that stays on your own server.
One paragraph
Total CMS is a self-hosted, flat-file content management system for web professionals who build sites for clients. Built on PHP 8.2+, it stores content as plain files on your own server, with no database required, and ships with a built-in MCP server, so AI coding agents like Claude Code and Cursor can read a site’s real schemas and content and write back through the same validation and permissions human editors use. Licenses are one-time purchases per domain, with two years of updates included and the software running perpetually after that. Total CMS is made by Joe Workman at Aspect Services, LLC, a California company founded in 2008, and has 4,500+ licenses deployed worldwide.
About 100 words
Total CMS is a flat-file PHP CMS built for the way sites get made now: an agent scaffolds the build, a client edits the content, and the design survives both. Every install ships with a built-in MCP server. AI agents query the site’s real schemas, real content, and version-exact Twig signatures, then write back through the same access groups and validation that govern human editors. Content lives as plain files on the owner’s server, with no database and no subscription: a one-time license per domain includes two years of updates, and the software runs forever. First shipped in 2015 and rebuilt from scratch between 2020 and 2025, it has 4,500+ licenses deployed, from yoga studios in Japan to newspaper associations in Washington, and is made by Joe Workman of Aspect Services, LLC.

Taglines Please quote these exactly.

Primary

Agents build. Clients edit. Design holds.

Long form

Your agent builds it. Your client edits it. Your design survives both.

Category descriptor

A flat-file PHP CMS with a built-in MCP server

Fact sheet

The numbers, kept current.

The version comes straight from the release notes, and the license count carries the month it was taken.

Product
Total CMS
Current version
3.6.1 (September 2026)
First shipped
2015
Current generation
Rebuilt from scratch 2020–2025; shipped December 2025
Licenses deployed
4,500+ (as of August 2026)
Pricing
Standard $195 · Pro $395, one-time, per domain
Update model
2 years of updates included; the software runs perpetually after; optional renewals
Trial
45 days, full Pro features, no credit card
Requirements
PHP 8.2+ · any PHP host · no database server
Storage
Flat files on your own server
Stack
PHP 8.2+ · Slim 4 · Twig 3
AI integration
Built-in MCP server. Standard: public read · Pro: full read-write with OAuth 2.1 or API keys
APIs
REST API (external access on Pro) · PHP API · tcms CLI
Source
Public on GitHub and Packagist (proprietary, source-available)
Company
Aspect Services, LLC · California, USA · founded 2008
Founder
Joe Workman
Press contact
[email protected]
Website
totalcms.co

The story

From one editable banner to 4,500+ licenses.

  1. 2014

    A Google Hangout and a rock climbing site

    A customer wanted to let his son edit a banner on his rock climbing business website. Joe built a form that edited a Markdown file on the server. That was the first Total CMS.

  2. 2015

    It takes off in Stacks

    Total CMS ships as a flat-file CMS for designers in the Stacks and RapidWeaver ecosystem. Its blogging system became the architecture Total CMS runs on today.

  3. 2020

    Version 2 never ships

    Total CMS 2 ran the Weaver’s Space website but was too complicated to hand to anyone else. It was scrapped, and a from-scratch rewrite began.

  4. 2024

    The rewrite goes public

    A standalone PHP platform, released as a public beta.

  5. 2025

    The rebuild ships

    Its own admin, a Site Builder, a REST API, a CLI, and a built-in MCP server. Stacks became one way to use it, not the only way.

What makes it different

Three things worth writing about.

The MCP server is built in, not bolted on. Every Total CMS install exposes an MCP server. An AI agent connected to it reads that install’s actual schemas, content, and the exact Twig filter signatures its version supports, pulled from the running code rather than from training data or a docs snapshot. When the agent writes, it writes through the same validation and access groups a human editor uses. Standard includes public read access; Pro adds full read-write access over OAuth 2.1 or API keys.

Agents and editors are governed by the same permissions. Access groups decide who can create, read, update and delete in each collection, and the layout lives in templates a client’s group never reaches. A client can update the testimonials; an agent can restructure a collection if its group allows it; neither can touch the layout unless given access to the templates. This is the practical answer to “how do I let AI work on a client site without it breaking things.”

Ownership is the architecture, not the pitch. Content is plain files on the owner’s server. No database, no platform, no subscription. The AI story works because of this: the files are legible, local, and under the owner’s permission system.

Story angles

Framings we think hold up.

Each one is backed by the facts on this page.

  1. More than a decade, and still shipping. Total CMS started in 2014 as a form that let a customer’s son edit one banner on his rock climbing business website. It has shipped since 2015, from a company operating since 2008, with 4,500+ licenses deployed, in a category full of funded competitors. The business-continuity question and its answer (perpetual licenses, page serving that never waits on a license check, source on Packagist) are part of the story, not a weakness in it.
  2. What “AI-native CMS” actually means when it’s real. Most AI CMS features are chat-in-a-sidebar. A built-in MCP server that exposes real schemas to any agent is architecturally different, and any journalist with Claude Code can test it in ten minutes against totalcms.co itself.
  3. The anti-subscription bet. One-time licenses with perpetual rights, in a market where most CMS vendors moved to recurring revenue. Two years of updates are bundled specifically to neutralize the subscription objection.
  4. The version that never shipped. Total CMS 2 was built, ran the Weaver’s Space website, and was scrapped in 2020 because it was too complicated to hand to anyone else. The from-scratch rewrite that replaced it went public in 2024, shipped in 2025, and took Total CMS from the Stacks and RapidWeaver ecosystem into the open PHP world, where many of its newer customers have never heard of Stacks.

The founder

Joe Workman.

More about him, in his own words, on the about page.

Joe Workman
Download headshot JPG, 1024×1024, 105 KB
Short bio
Joe Workman is the founder of Aspect Services, LLC and the developer of Total CMS. He has been building and selling web software for independent designers since 2009, and writes the code, ships the releases and answers the support email himself, from California.
Long bio
Joe Workman has spent more than fifteen years building tools for web designers who build sites for clients. He founded Weaver’s Space in 2009 and grew it into one of the largest add-on developers in the Stacks and RapidWeaver ecosystem, with a catalog of 130+ tools, an annual online summit, and a YouTube channel with 700+ videos. Total CMS started there in 2014, as a form that let a customer’s son edit a banner on his rock climbing business website, and first shipped in 2015. After scrapping an unreleased second version in 2020, Joe rebuilt it from scratch as a standalone PHP platform with a built-in MCP server, which shipped in 2025. He writes the code and answers the support email himself, and lives in California with his wife Fran and three children.

Logos & screenshots

Free to use, no gate.

These assets are free to use in reviews, articles, comparisons, videos, and other coverage of Total CMS, in digital and print media. Please don’t alter the screenshots, use the assets to imply endorsement, or misrepresent product features. That’s the whole policy.

Everything below in one file ZIP, 2.1 MB

The Total CMS admin dashboard: collections, schemas, templates, and system status on a live production site.
The Total CMS admin dashboard: collections, schemas, templates, and system status on a live production site. Download PNG 2728×2382, 147 KB
Editing content in Total CMS: forms are generated from each collection's schema, with rich text, meta fields, and read-only fields where the schema sets them.
Editing content in Total CMS: forms are generated from each collection's schema, with rich text, meta fields, and read-only fields where the schema sets them. Download PNG 2728×2382, 246 KB
The schema editor: site owners define custom content types with 30+ field types, required and indexed properties, and nested deck sub-schemas.
The schema editor: site owners define custom content types with 30+ field types, required and indexed properties, and nested deck sub-schemas. Download PNG 2728×2382, 149 KB
The Image Builder: on-the-fly resizing, cropping, format conversion, and watermarking, with copy-paste Twig macros for every variant.
The Image Builder: on-the-fly resizing, cropping, format conversion, and watermarking, with copy-paste Twig macros for every variant. Download PNG 2728×2382, 735 KB
Site Builder: pages, layouts, and Twig templates managed in the admin — or via git, with in-admin editing disabled on deployed environments.
Site Builder: pages, layouts, and Twig templates managed in the admin — or via git, with in-admin editing disabled on deployed environments. Download PNG 2728×2382, 228 KB
Claude reading a live Total CMS install through the built-in MCP server: real collections, real schemas, real routing — no guesswork.
Claude reading a live Total CMS install through the built-in MCP server: real collections, real schemas, real routing — no guesswork. Download PNG 2338×2284, 217 KB
The full admin, phone-sized: every screen in Total CMS is responsive.
The full admin, phone-sized: every screen in Total CMS is responsive. Download PNG 1206×2622, 56 KB

Writing about Total CMS?

Email goes straight to Joe, who writes the code, and he usually replies within a day or two. To test it before you write a word, start the 45-day trial, or point Claude Code at this site’s own MCP server at totalcms.co/mcp.

[email protected] Download the press kit