CMS Layer for Nuxt

A Nuxt layer providing a complete, self-hosted CMS system with authentication, user management, and content editing features. Designed to be extended by other Nuxt applications through the Nuxt layers system.

Installation

npm install @robarkesteijn/nexus
# or
pnpm add @robarkesteijn/nexus
# or
yarn add @robarkesteijn/nexus

Quick Start

In your Nuxt project's nuxt.config.ts:

export default defineNuxtConfig({
  extends: ['@robarkesteijn/nexus'],
})

That's it! The CMS layer will automatically provide:

• Admin dashboard at /admin
• Authentication system
• User management
• Content management (pages, templates)
• Media management
• All necessary API routes and components

Core Features

• Authentication & Sessions

  • Login/logout system with secure password hashing (bcryptjs)
  • Session management via cookies
  • Middleware to protect /admin routes

• User Management

  • Admin dashboard for managing users
  • Add, edit, and delete users through a UI
  • Role-based permissions (admin, editor, viewer)
  • Passwords are always stored securely and never exposed

• Content Management

  • ✅ Full CRUD for posts/pages stored in SQLite
  • Post status management (draft, published, archived)
  • Slug-based URLs and SEO-friendly structure
  • Extensible design for handling additional content types

• Media Management

  • 🔶 Basic upload infrastructure in place
  • Local file storage in Docker volume
  • Designed to work without third-party storage providers

• Persistence

  • Uses SQLite (better-sqlite3) for simplicity and portability
  • Database and uploaded files stored in a mounted .data volume (survives redeploys)
  • Optionally containerized with Docker for both development and production

• UI

  • Built with Nuxt UI 4.x for modern, accessible components
  • Custom theme with spring-green primary colors
  • Uses modals, forms, data tables, and toasts for a clean admin interface

Philosophy

• Keep it lightweight and self-contained
• Minimize reliance on external SaaS (can be hosted anywhere)
• Easy to extend via Nuxt layers so each new site reuses the CMS core

Requirements

• Node.js: >=24.0.0 <25.0.0
• pnpm: >=10.0.0 <11.0.0 (or npm/yarn)
• Nuxt: ^4.0.0

Links

• 📦 npm package
• 🐙 GitHub repository
• 📚 Nuxt Layers Documentation

🛠️ Development

This section is for developing the layer itself. If you just want to use the layer, see Installation above.

The project includes a .playground directory for testing the layer during development.

Local Development (without Docker)

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Run development server
pnpm dev

# Build for production
pnpm build

# Preview production build
pnpm preview

Docker Development

This project uses Docker with separate configs for production and development.

📦 Requirements

• Docker installed
• Docker Compose v2+
• make (for convenience commands)

🔹 Running in Development (Hot Reload)

Run the Nuxt dev server inside Docker:

make dev

Stop with:

make down

🔹 Running in Production Mode

Builds and serves the optimized Nuxt app:

make prod

Stop with:

make down

🔹 Rebuilding Containers

Rebuild production:

make rebuild

Rebuild development:

make rebuild-dev

🔹 Volumes

cms-data → persisted at /srv/cms-data inside the container

To remove everything (including volumes):

make clean

🔹 First Time Setup

When starting the application for the first time (or after removing volumes), a default admin user will be automatically created:

• Email: [email protected] (or set DEFAULT_ADMIN_EMAIL environment variable)
• Password: admin123 (or set DEFAULT_ADMIN_PASSWORD environment variable)
• Role: Admin

⚠️ Important: Change the default password after first login for security!

Environment Variables

You can customize the default admin user by setting these environment variables:

[email protected]
DEFAULT_ADMIN_PASSWORD=your-secure-password

🔹 Enter Dev Container Shell

make shell

Opens an interactive shell inside the running dev container. Useful for running commands like:

pnpm add <package>       # Install new dependencies
pnpm update              # Update packages
ls node_modules          # Inspect installed dependencies

Publishing

This package is automatically published to npm when a GitHub release is created. See the GitHub Actions workflow for details.

To publish manually:

npm publish --access public

License

MIT