Manage
This section is for running CairnCMS in production. The pages here cover the operator-facing surfaces: configuring the environment, deploying the platform, hardening it for production traffic, backing it up, upgrading between versions, and moving schema and access-control state between deployments.
For first-time installation and local exploration, see Quickstart. For developer-facing customization, see Develop. For the underlying API reference, see API reference.
Pages in this section
Section titled “Pages in this section”- Configuration — the environment variables that govern every subsystem (auth, storage, cache, mail, rate limiting, logging).
- Deployment — running the official Docker image alongside your database and supporting services. Single-host Compose, Kubernetes, and the bootstrap-then-start lifecycle.
- Security hardening — production-safety configuration: TLS, secrets, the Public role, admin access, rate limiting, CORS, and the email-link allow lists.
- Backups — what state needs backing up, per-vendor dump and restore commands, and the restore drill.
- Upgrades — the version model, the standard upgrade procedure, multi-instance considerations, and rollback.
- Schema as code — capturing the data model to a versioned file and applying it across environments.
- Migration between instances — moving a deployment from one home to another, including cross-vendor and cross-version migrations.
- Config as code — the same diff/apply pattern for roles and permissions.
Where to go after this section
Section titled “Where to go after this section”- API reference — the endpoints behind the operator surfaces, including the
/schema/*and/config/*endpoints used by schema-as-code and config-as-code. - Develop — the customization surfaces that the production instance hosts.
- Contributing — running CairnCMS from source rather than from the published image.