What's new in Total CMS.

• Seed content to production — tcms push --objects=blog sends a collection's objects to your production server, skipping anything already there
• Seed Objects in the Sync Manager — choose which collections are seeded on push
• Feature-named sync flags: --pages, --dataviews, --mailer, --mcp-prompts, --automations
• Read-only Site Builder template tools for MCP agents
• Security — client IP is no longer taken on trust behind a proxy, and session files moved out of the server's shared directory

New top-level subsystems sit alongside the existing collections and templates engine — the biggest release since Total CMS 3 launched.

• Site Builder — build pages, routes and templates in the admin, served dynamically at request time
• Extension system — extend Total CMS at every layer, with capability-based permissions so third-party code can't do more than the admin allows
• Built-in MCP server + OAuth 2.1 — AI agents read and write your content over a standards-based interface
• Automations — run your own PHP handlers on a schedule, a webhook, or a content event
• Internationalization — localized field types, a BCP 47 locale registry, and locale-aware routing
• Publishing API — publish from MarsEdit, Byword or Ulysses over a WordPress-compatible endpoint
• Composer distribution & CLI — composer create-project totalcms/totalcms, plus a full tcms command-line tool
• Event system — a priority-ordered dispatcher with 20 core events
• Sync — the Sync Manager now moves collection objects alongside schemas and templates
• Security — a per-site encryption key, and security headers across admin, auth and setup

• Styled Text dialogs rebuilt on a shared base
• Radio and multicheckbox fields now share a common ChoiceField base
• Help text rendering and field attribute building centralized

• Indent and outdent buttons for Styled Text
• A standardized confirm dialog replaces the browser's native one across the admin
• New fieldColumns arranges radio and multicheckbox options in columns
• Image cache keys now include a content hash, so derivatives invalidate correctly
• Formgrid layouts work inside deck item forms

• Element Attributes dialog — set class, id and data-* attributes on any block
• Those attributes now survive a code-view round trip
• All heading levels H1–H6, with a setting controlling which appear
• New blockClasses setting provides class autocomplete

• Import and export deck properties as CSV or JSON
• New cms.utils.urlFilters() turns URL query parameters into collection filters
• Sort support across index filters, relational options and data views
• Bulk mailer moved to its own form with a configurable daily maximum
• Styled Text now pastes as plain text by default

• Watermark settings can now be set at the collection level
• New lockOnEdit setting prevents editing a field after creation
• Calc field settings for form fields
• Empty paragraphs cleaned from the start and end of Styled Text

• Styled Text — an all-new rich text editor with image uploads, video/file embeds, table editing, and code view
• Passkey authentication — WebAuthn passwordless login for the admin dashboard
• Data Views — saved, filtered queries across collections, with API access and scheduled rebuilds
• Load More — frontend pagination for progressively loading content, with Data View support
• Template Designer — the {% templatedesigner %} tag for inline, token-gated template editing
• Collection Reports — a reporting API and admin utility for collection data
• WordPress import — a full import path from WordPress, with security validation

• Depot Browser reverse sort and tag filtering
• class and loading attributes on gallery images
• EXIF reading fixed for WebP and PNG files
• Per-object property setting overrides now apply in forms

• Depot Browser — a full file management UI with preview, filtering, drag-and-drop uploads and keyboard navigation
• Depot Drop field — pick files from a depot in any form
• Manual sort orders for collections, with Twig filter support
• Form error summaries and configurable status banners
• Fixes for persistent login and post-login redirects

• Gallery captions now support Twig templating, and can display in the lightbox
• New cms.log() function for logging from a template
• New keyBy and sum collection filters
• ImageWorks fixes: format option, no upscaling past original size, no forced 600px width

• License validation now works offline from cached data
• Significant caching and index-building performance work
• Export a single object to a ZIP archive
• New cms.objectCount() counts a collection without loading it

• Localized dates, numbers, currencies and relative time strings
• New deployment guide covering Git, cache clearing and CI/CD
• Featured image indicators and colour field datalists
• Graceful fallback when the PHP INTL extension is missing

• Deck items are validated against their schema, and support autogen IDs
• New cms.currentUrl property in Twig
• RSS writer moved to laminas/laminas-feed for PHP 8.4 compatibility
• API actions now return proper error codes instead of 200 on failure

• New support diagnostic tool for troubleshooting an installation on a server

• Dev mode toggle directly on the dashboard
• Cmd/Ctrl-click to open an object form in a new tab
• HEIC conversion now uses the ImageMagick extension instead of shell commands
• Better responsive form layouts on mobile
• New recurringMonthDate filters for recurring events

• Fixed gallery image reordering (drag and drop) in Firefox
• New .cms-logout class handler for one-click logout links
• Inherited schema properties can now be overridden in child schemas
• Updated the encryption cipher used for stored secrets

The rebuild goes public. Total CMS 3 is a ground-up rewrite on PHP 8.2, Slim 4 and Twig 3 — flat-file JSON storage, no database, and an admin built around collections and schemas instead of page-by-page editing.

It ran in the open for eighteen months and fifty releases before shipping as 3.1 in December 2025, with customers building real sites on it throughout.