Combining a static site generator with a headless CMS gives content editors a familiar editing experience while delivering the performance benefits of static hosting. This guide covers connecting these pieces together.
The Architecture: Best of Both Worlds
Content editors work in a genuine CMS interface (not raw Markdown files); the static site generator builds pages from that CMS's content at build time, producing genuinely static output — combines editorial convenience with static hosting's performance and simplicity advantages (see Choosing Between Static Site Hosting and a Traditional Server).
Choosing a Headless CMS Backend
See How to Install Strapi Headless CMS on a VPS or How to Install Directus as a Self-Hosted Headless CMS — either provides a genuine content management interface with an API your static site generator can pull from during build.
Fetching Content at Build Time
const posts = await fetch('https://cms.yourdomain.com/api/articles').then(r => r.json());
for (const post of posts) {
generateStaticPage(post);
}Your static site generator's build process queries the headless CMS API, generating static pages from the current content — this happens at build time, not runtime, meaning content updates require a new build to appear on the live site.
Triggering Rebuilds on Content Changes
app.post('/cms-webhook', async (req, res) => {
await triggerBuild();
res.status(200).send();
});See How to Design and Secure Webhook Endpoints — configure your CMS to trigger a webhook on content publish/update, automatically initiating a new static site build/deployment so changes go live promptly without manual intervention.
Setting Up the Automated Build Pipeline
See How to Set Up Continuous Deployment for a Static Site with GitHub Actions — the CMS webhook can trigger your existing CI/CD pipeline, which fetches current content, builds the static site, and deploys — a complete, automated content-to-live-site flow.
Handling Preview for Draft/Unpublished Content
Editors typically want to preview content before it's live — consider a separate preview build/deployment triggered by draft saves, or a preview mode in your frontend that fetches directly from the CMS API (bypassing the static build) for draft content specifically.
Managing Build Time as Content Grows
As your content volume grows, full rebuilds take progressively longer — consider incremental build approaches (see How to Set Up Incremental Static Regeneration with Next.js for a related but distinct pattern) if build time becomes a genuine bottleneck for your publishing frequency.
Handling Images and Media from the CMS
Ensure your build process correctly fetches and processes (optimizes, see How to Optimize Images for Web Performance) media referenced in CMS content, rather than serving unoptimized images directly from the CMS at their original resolution/format.
Version Controlling Your Static Site Templates
While content lives in the CMS, your site's templates/presentation code should remain in version control (see How to Version Control Your Server Configuration) — a clean separation between "what to display" (templates, in Git) and "what content to display" (in the CMS).
Common Errors
Published content doesn't appear on the live site — verify the CMS webhook is genuinely firing and successfully triggering your build pipeline; check both the webhook delivery logs (CMS side) and build trigger logs (CI/CD side) to isolate where the flow is breaking.
Continue Reading
- How to Install Strapi Headless CMS on a VPS
- How to Set Up Continuous Deployment for a Static Site with GitHub Actions
- How to Design and Secure Webhook Endpoints
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