EmDash for Astro Developers

EmDash is a CMS built specifically for Astro—not a generic headless CMS with an Astro adapter. It extends your Astro site with database-backed content, a polished admin UI, and WordPress-style features (menus, widgets, taxonomies) while preserving the developer experience you expect.

Everything you know about Astro still applies. EmDash enhances your site; it doesn’t replace your workflow.

What EmDash Adds

EmDash provides the content management features that file-based Astro sites lack:

Astro Collections vs EmDash

Astro’s astro:content collections are file-based and resolved at build time. EmDash collections are database-backed and resolved at runtime.

Use Both Together

Astro collections and EmDash can coexist. Use Astro collections for developer content (docs, changelogs) and EmDash for editor content (blog posts, pages):

---
import { getCollection } from "astro:content";
import { getEmDashCollection } from "emdash";

// Developer-managed docs from files
const docs = await getCollection("docs");

// Editor-managed posts from database
const { entries: posts } = await getEmDashCollection("posts", {
  status: "published",
  limit: 5,
});
---

Configuration

EmDash requires two configuration files.

Astro Integration

import { defineConfig } from "astro/config";
import emdash, { local } from "emdash/astro";
import { sqlite } from "emdash/db";

export default defineConfig({
	output: "server", // Required for EmDash
	integrations: [
		emdash({
			database: sqlite({ url: "file:./data.db" }),
			storage: local({
				directory: "./uploads",
				baseUrl: "/_emdash/api/media/file",
			}),
		}),
	],
});

Live Collections Loader

import { defineLiveCollection } from "astro:content";
import { emdashLoader } from "emdash/runtime";

export const collections = {
	_emdash: defineLiveCollection({
		loader: emdashLoader(),
	}),
};

This registers EmDash as a live content source. The _emdash collection internally routes to your content types (posts, pages, products).

Querying Content

EmDash provides query functions that follow Astro’s live content collections pattern, returning { entries, error } or { entry, error }:

import { getEmDashCollection, getEmDashEntry } from "emdash";

// Get all published posts - returns { entries, error }
const { entries: posts } = await getEmDashCollection("posts", {
status: "published",
});

// Get a single post by slug - returns { entry, error, isPreview }
const { entry: post } = await getEmDashEntry("posts", "my-post");

import { getCollection, getEntry } from "astro:content";

// Get all blog entries
const posts = await getCollection("blog");

// Get a single entry by slug
const post = await getEntry("blog", "my-post");

Filtering Options

getEmDashCollection supports filtering that Astro’s getCollection doesn’t:

const { entries: posts } = await getEmDashCollection("posts", {
	status: "published", // draft | published | archived
	limit: 10, // max results
	where: { category: "news" }, // taxonomy filter
});

Rendering Content

EmDash stores rich text as Portable Text, a structured JSON format. Render it with the PortableText component:

---
import { getEmDashEntry } from "emdash";
import { PortableText } from "emdash/ui";

const { slug } = Astro.params;
const { entry: post } = await getEmDashEntry("posts", slug);

if (!post) {
return Astro.redirect("/404");
}

---

<article>
  <h1>{post.data.title}</h1>
  <PortableText value={post.data.content} />
</article>

---
import { getEntry, render } from "astro:content";

const { slug } = Astro.params;
const post = await getEntry("blog", slug);
const { Content } = await render(post);

---

<article>
  <h1>{post.data.title}</h1>
  <Content />
</article>

Dynamic Features

EmDash provides APIs for WordPress-style features that don’t exist in Astro’s content layer.

Navigation Menus

---
import { getMenu } from "emdash";

const primaryMenu = await getMenu("primary");
---

{primaryMenu && (
  <nav>
    <ul>
      {primaryMenu.items.map(item => (
        <li>
          <a href={item.url}>{item.label}</a>
          {item.children.length > 0 && (
            <ul>
              {item.children.map(child => (
                <li><a href={child.url}>{child.label}</a></li>
              ))}
            </ul>
          )}
        </li>
      ))}
    </ul>
  </nav>
)}

Widget Areas

---
import { getWidgetArea } from "emdash";
import { PortableText } from "emdash/ui";

const sidebar = await getWidgetArea("sidebar");
---

{sidebar && sidebar.widgets.length > 0 && (
  <aside>
    {sidebar.widgets.map(widget => (
      <div class="widget">
        {widget.title && <h3>{widget.title}</h3>}
        {widget.type === "content" && widget.content && (
          <PortableText value={widget.content} />
        )}
      </div>
    ))}
  </aside>
)}

Site Settings

---
import { getSiteSettings, getSiteSetting } from "emdash";

const settings = await getSiteSettings();
// Or fetch individual values:
const title = await getSiteSetting("title");
---

<header>
  {settings.logo ? (
    <img src={settings.logo.url} alt={settings.title} />
  ) : (
    <span>{settings.title}</span>
  )}
  {settings.tagline && <p>{settings.tagline}</p>}
</header>

Plugins

Extend EmDash with plugins that add hooks, storage, settings, and admin UI:

import emdash from "emdash/astro";
import seoPlugin from "@emdash-cms/plugin-seo";

export default defineConfig({
	integrations: [
		emdash({
			// ...
			plugins: [seoPlugin({ generateSitemap: true })],
		}),
	],
});

Create custom plugins with definePlugin:

import { definePlugin } from "emdash";

export default definePlugin({
	id: "analytics",
	version: "1.0.0",
	capabilities: ["read:content"],

	hooks: {
		"content:afterSave": async (event, ctx) => {
			ctx.log.info("Content saved", { id: event.content.id });
		},
	},

	admin: {
		settingsSchema: {
			trackingId: { type: "string", label: "Tracking ID" },
		},
	},
});

Server Rendering

EmDash sites run in SSR mode. Content changes appear immediately without rebuilds.

For static pages with getStaticPaths, content is fetched at build time:

---
import { getEmDashCollection, getEmDashEntry } from "emdash";

export async function getStaticPaths() {
  const { entries: posts } = await getEmDashCollection("posts", {
    status: "published",
  });

  return posts.map((post) => ({
    params: { slug: post.data.slug },
  }));
}

const { slug } = Astro.params;
const { entry: post } = await getEmDashEntry("posts", slug);
---

For dynamic pages, set prerender = false to fetch content on each request:

---
export const prerender = false;

import { getEmDashEntry } from "emdash";

const { slug } = Astro.params;
const { entry: post, error } = await getEmDashEntry("posts", slug);

if (error) {
  return new Response("Server error", { status: 500 });
}

if (!post) {
  return new Response(null, { status: 404 });
}
---

Next Steps