Core Concepts | Schemaful Docs

Understand the building blocks of Schemaful: schemas, fields, entries, assets, and locales.

Schemas

A schema defines a content type. Think of it as a blueprint for your content. Each schema has an ID, display name, and a collection of fields.

Example: Blog Post Schema

{
  id: "blog-post",
  name: "Blog Post",
  description: "Articles for the company blog",
  displayField: "title"  // Field shown in entry lists
}

Schemas are stored in the cms_schemas table.

Fields

Fields define the structure of content within a schema. Schemaful supports 10 field types:

Type	Description	Example
Symbol	Short text (max 256 chars)	Title, slug
Text	Long text (unlimited)	Description, excerpt
RichText	Structured rich text (JSON)	Article body
Integer	Whole numbers	Order, count
Number	Decimal numbers	Price, rating
Boolean	True/false	Published, featured
Date	ISO date string	Publish date
Location	Lat/long coordinates	Store location
Link	Reference to entry/asset	Author, hero image
Array	List of any type above	Tags, gallery

Fields can be required, localized, and have validations.

Entries

An entry is an instance of a schema—your actual content. Entries are stored per-locale with JSONB data.

Example: Blog Post Entry

{
  id: "abc123",
  schemaId: "blog-post",
  locale: "en",
  data: {
    title: "Getting Started with Schemaful",
    slug: "getting-started",
    content: { /* RichText JSON */ },
    author: { sys: { id: "author-1", linkType: "Entry" } }
  },
  publishedAt: "2025-01-15T10:00:00Z"
}

Entries can be draft (unpublished) or published. The same entry ID can have different content per locale.

Assets

Assets are media files (images, documents, videos) with localized metadata.

Example: Asset

{
  id: "img-001",
  locale: "en",
  title: "Hero Image",
  description: "Homepage hero banner",
  fileName: "hero.jpg",
  contentType: "image/jpeg",
  url: "https://cdn.example.com/hero.jpg",
  width: 1920,
  height: 1080
}

Assets are referenced from entries using Link fields with linkType: "Asset".

Locales

Locales define the languages your content supports. Each locale has a code, name, and optional fallback chain.

Example: Locales

// Default locale
{ code: "en", name: "English", isDefault: true }

// With fallback chain
{ code: "fr-CA", name: "French (Canada)", fallbackCode: "fr" }
{ code: "fr", name: "French", fallbackCode: "en" }

When content is missing in a locale, Schemaful falls back through the chain.fr-CA → fr → en

Links & References

The Link field type creates references between content.

Link Structure

// Entry link
{
  sys: {
    id: "author-123",
    linkType: "Entry"
  }
}

// Asset link
{
  sys: {
    id: "image-456",
    linkType: "Asset"
  }
}

When fetching entries, you can resolve links to include the full referenced content (avoiding N+1 queries).

Next Steps

• Query content with the tRPC API
• Deploy your CMS with self-hosting