NetlifyCMS on GitLab Pages

A headless CMS

So the search for a way to edit and add entries to a static site on GitLab Pages (as this site is) is over! The (in my opinion misnamed) NetlifyCMS headless CMS is a brilliant solution to providing in-browser rich updating and editing of a static site.

It deploys as a react app, but can authorize to GitLab (or GitHub, git and others) and commit changes to the static site's repository, so that when the site is then re-compiled, the changes are included! I was previously using Forestry.io as a solution, but that still requires an external agent/app to have access to your repository, and there's some vendor lock-in.

I'd like to do a more in-depth look of some of the configuration bits, so maybe I'll do that when I get some time, but for now, take a look at the NetlifyCMS docs, as they are pretty decent at getting you started. I used the Implicit Grant, which lets the react app authorize to GitLab without needing any other server.