Admin / Media / Deploy — The Operations Layer
Admin UI customization, the plugin ecosystem, Media (Uploads + S3), the Postgres adapter, migrations, the Jobs Queue, Vercel / Docker / Railway deployment, and a sketch of AI Auto-Embedding — wrapping up the introductory series in one chapter.
APIs — Local / REST / GraphQL three layers
A walk through the three API layers PayloadCMS grows from your config (Local / REST / GraphQL) — how they relate, when to use each, and how generated types fit in.
Core Concepts — Config-First / Collections / Globals
A tour of the Config-First philosophy at the heart of PayloadCMS, how to read payload.config.ts, and when to choose Collections versus Globals — anchored on official minimal examples.
Data Modeling — Fields / Lexical / Relationships / Versions / Localization
A sweep over the data-modeling layer of PayloadCMS — Fields, Relationships, Blocks, Lexical Rich Text, Localization, and Versions — anchored on minimal code that shows "what you write is what you get."
Introduction to PayloadCMS
A 7-chapter guide that walks through PayloadCMS — the Next.js-native headless CMS. We cover what changed in 3.x, data modeling, authentication and authorization, APIs, Next.js integration, and operations in one continuous flow.
Next.js Integration — A Deep Dive on Co-location
A focused, 12-section tour of the headline feature of PayloadCMS 3.x — the Next.js co-located architecture, from route groups through instrumentation, the Local API, Lexical rendering, Live Preview, and Draft Preview.
Security & Lifecycle — Auth / Access Control / Hooks
Authentication, function-based Access Control, and the Hooks that hook into the lifecycle — anchored on the minimal examples that fall out of the official docs.
What is PayloadCMS / Why now
A concise tour of where PayloadCMS sits (OSS / self-hosted / Next.js native), what changed in 3.x, the context around the Figma acquisition, and how it compares to other Headless CMSes.