Beta software. NuxFlow is under active development. The core feature set is stable but breaking changes may still occur between releases. Suitable for early adopters and non-critical production sites — a stable 1.0 release will follow once the API surface is locked. Feedback and contributions are very welcome.
NuxFlow is a self-hosted, open-source CMS that gives non-technical editors a WordPress-level visual page-building experience, engineered specifically for the serverless Cloudflare Workers edge ecosystem.
By optimizing strictly for Cloudflare Workers instead of legacy VPS hosting or complex AWS cloud architectures, NuxFlow delivers a zero-configuration, zero-cold-start, and virtually free-to-host CMS capable of serving pages globally in under 15ms.
For users: A guided onboarding wizard, a drag-and-drop Canvas page builder, media library, multi-step forms, and an intuitive admin dashboard — all with zero database configuration or server setups.
For developers: A fully typed Nuxt 4 monorepo with Drizzle ORM, a REST API plus an MCP server for AI agents, a CLI for building plugins and themes, and a secure, cryptographically signed dynamic plugin sandbox powered by Cloudflare's Dynamic Workers.
Quick Start
pnpm create nuxflow-app@beta
Also works with npm create nuxflow-app@beta or pnpm dlx create-nuxflow-app@beta.
The scaffolder downloads NuxFlow, generates a secure auth secret, configures your .env, and walks you through D1 database setup — ready to run in under two minutes.
Note: The @beta tag is required while NuxFlow is in pre-release. Once a stable 1.0 is published the tag can be dropped.
For a manual setup or to contribute to NuxFlow itself, see Getting Started below.
Live Demo
Explore NuxFlow without installing anything — a live instance resets every night so you can freely make changes, break things, and see exactly how the admin works.
You can build pages, write posts, upload images, manage menus and taxonomies, switch themes and try the SEO tools. Because everyone shares one login, the demo switches off AI features, plugins, API keys and MCP, account changes, custom HTML, email, payments and backup restore. Uploads are limited to images up to 2 MB. The demo resets automatically at 3 AM UTC each night.
Features
Canvas Visual Page Builder
- Elementor-style drag-and-drop editor — build pages visually without writing code
- Built-in block types: Hero, Text, Image, Video, Columns, Container, Features, Testimonial, CTA Banner, Spacer, GDPR Banner, Footer, Button, Accordion, Pricing Table, Gallery, Carousel, Events Calendar, Posts, Contact Form, Form, HTML, Membership Pricing
- Third-party blocks — install dynamic plugins to add new block types (a countdown, a map, etc.)
- State-driven editing — every property change updates live JSON, saved with a single API call
- Fully server-side rendered — canvas pages are SSR'd at the edge for instant first paint and SEO
Rich Text Content
- Prose editor powered by TipTap for rich text editing (WYSIWYG layout)
- Formatting options: Paragraph, Headings (H1–H3), Bold, Italic, Underline, Strikethrough, Highlight, Inline/Block Code, Ordered/Unordered Lists, Blockquote, Divider, Images, Links, and Tables
- Content types: Pages, Posts, custom types defined per site
- Workflow states: Draft → Pending Review → Scheduled → Published → Archived
- Revision history — point-in-time snapshots with preview and one-click restore
- Scheduled publishing — automatic publish at a set time, respects site timezone
- Shareable preview links — 48-hour signed URL, no login required
- Auto-save — debounced 10-second background save on existing items
- Content taxonomies — tags, categories, and admin-defined custom taxonomies
- Multi-language — one-click AI translation of any page or post into a linked draft, served at
/{locale}/{slug} with hreflang alternates and a language switcher
Media Management & Video Streaming
- Drag-and-drop upload to the media library, with folders
- Storage — Cloudflare R2 out of the box (just bind a bucket — no keys or public URL needed), or Cloudflare Images, configured per site in Settings → Media
- Alt text and caption editor per asset, with AI-generated alt text from the actual image
- Responsive image delivery via optional Cloudflare Image Transformations
- Media picker component embedded in the block editor
- Cloudflare Stream integration — direct browser uploads, automatic transcoding, and an embedded player
Authentication & Users
- Email/password login with Argon2id hashing (OWASP 2024 first choice, m=19456 KiB), running directly in the Worker
- Social login — Google and GitHub OAuth
- Passkey / Passwordless login — register and authenticate with biometrics (Touch ID, Face ID) or hardware keys via WebAuthn
- Role-based access control: Super Admin, Admin, Editor, Author, Member, Viewer
- Multi-site roles — users can have different roles on different sites
- Password reset via email (24-hour links)
- User invitation workflow with role assignment
Site Settings & SEO
- Per-item SEO — meta title, description, canonical URL, robots, Open Graph, Twitter Card, and Schema.org structured data (BlogPosting, Event, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList)
- XML sitemaps at
/sitemap.xml and /sitemap-images.xml, plus RSS (/feed.xml) and Atom (/atom.xml) feeds
- robots.txt and AI crawlers — allow, block AI training only, or block all AI crawlers;
Content-Signal headers; llms.txt and a Markdown version of every page
- Redirect manager — 301/302/307/308/410, CSV import, and automatic 301s when a published page's slug changes
- IndexNow pings on publish, plus an SEO audit and a crawler activity report
- Analytics — Admin → Analytics: cookie-free page views, top pages, referrers, countries and devices per site, via Cloudflare Analytics Engine (one binding and an API token to switch on — see the installation guide). Or paste any analytics script into the head/body code settings
Forms Builder
- Form builder with field types: Short text, Long text, Email, Number, Select, Radio, Checkbox, Date, File upload, Signature, Hidden, and Computed
- Computed fields — real-time expression evaluation (e.g.
{{quantity}} * {{price}})
- Spam protection via Cloudflare Turnstile plus a background AI moderation pass
- Submissions inbox for every form (including the built-in contact form): unread/read/archived/spam, reply by email, CSV export
- Optional email notification on submission
Theme System & Visual Customizer
- Visual Customizer — full-screen, no-code style editor with a side-by-side live preview of your site; change fonts (17 Google Fonts), colours, backgrounds, spacing density, content width, and corner radius in real time, then publish with one click
- Site logo — upload a logo image (PNG/SVG/WebP) to replace the text site name in the public header; managed from Settings → Appearance
- Custom code injection — inject analytics tags, chat widgets, or any HTML into
<head> or <body> of every public page via Settings → Appearance, with no redeploy required
- Themes are CSS files stored in KV and injected at render time — upload, preview, and activate with no redeploy
- Live theme preview — admin sees new theme while visitors see the current one
- Instant activation — new theme takes effect immediately on activation
- Layout regions — a plugin block can replace the built-in header or footer
- CLI scaffolding:
npx @nuxflow/cli theme create
Membership & Payments
- Membership tiers with recurring subscription pricing
- Auto-sync — saving a tier automatically creates the matching product and price in your configured provider(s); no manual setup in the provider dashboard required
- Content access gating — per-page: Public / Members Only / Specific Tier
- Paywall component shown to visitors who lack access
- Payment processors: Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle (configure one or all three simultaneously)
- Cancel subscription — members cancel from
/account for all providers; Stripe members can also open the Customer Portal for invoice history and payment method updates
- Webhook handlers for full subscription lifecycle (created, updated, cancelled, expired)
- Subscriber management admin page
Plugin System
- Dynamic plugins run as isolated Cloudflare Worker instances — code is uploaded to KV and spawned on demand with zero redeployment
- Ed25519 code signing — every plugin must be signed with the author's private key; the server verifies the signature and SHA-256 checksums on install and on every request, blocking tampered code before it executes
- Canvas blocks — dynamic plugins can register new block types that appear in the page builder immediately after install
- CLI toolchain —
nuxflow plugin keygen · nuxflow plugin build · nuxflow plugin deploy
- No bundled plugins — all built-in features (Canvas blocks, Contact Forms, Memberships, HTML embeds) are part of core NuxFlow
Multi-Site Management
- One installation manages unlimited sites with full data isolation
- Per-site domain, theme, plugins, users, and content
- All database queries scoped by
site_id
- Super-admin dashboard with cross-site stats, database size monitoring, and a whole-database export
- Site creation wizard, plus a central sign-in domain so passwords are never typed on a tenant's own pages
AI
- Works out of the box with Workers AI (no API key), or bring your own OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, DeepSeek, or Ollama; optional Cloudflare AI Gateway for caching and logging
- Page and whole-site generation — plan, review, and publish AI-built Canvas pages
- Writing tools — improve/shorten/expand text, grammar, readability score, SEO title and description suggestions, tag suggestions, translation
- Images — AI image generation, alt text, and focal points from the actual image
- Voice — dictation into prompts, and "Listen to this article" on public posts
- Semantic search (optional, Vectorize) alongside built-in full-text search
REST API & MCP
- REST API v1 — full CRUD on all content types, paginated and filterable
- MCP server — let AI agents read and edit content (see docs/mcp.md)
- API keys — generate named keys with
read:content / write:content scopes (plus manage:plugins / manage:themes for the CLI), revoke anytime
- Bearer token authentication for external consumers
- Unauthenticated requests automatically restricted to published content
Operations & Developer Experience
- In-app notifications — bell icon in admin header for publish, submission, comment events
- Audit log — full history of admin actions (who, what, when)
- Full-text search — SQLite FTS5, zero external dependency
- Content export — JSON or CSV download
- Maintenance mode — toggle from settings; shows a customisable holding page
- Rate limiting — DB-backed atomic upsert (works across Cloudflare Worker isolates)
- GDPR cookie consent banner — simple opt-in/opt-out consent banner for compliance
- Comment system — native threaded comments with auto-approval for logged-in users and moderation queue for guests
- Scheduled cron task — auto-publishes scheduled content every minute
- CSRF protection, input validation (Zod), security headers
Stack
| Layer | Technology |
|---|
| Framework | Nuxt 4 |
| Runtime | Cloudflare Workers (via Nitro cloudflare-module preset) |
| Database | Cloudflare D1 |
| ORM | Drizzle ORM |
| UI | Nuxt UI (free) — TipTap integrated directly via @tiptap/vue-3, admin layout is hand-built |
| Auth | Better Auth (hand-rolled integration, no Nuxt auth module) |
| State | Composables + useState (no store library) |
| Validation | Zod |
| Animations | Vue's built-in <Transition> — no animation library dependency |
| AI | Vercel AI SDK + Workers AI |
| Monorepo | pnpm workspaces + Turborepo |
| Testing | Vitest + Playwright |
Project Structure
nuxflow/
├── apps/nuxflow/ # Main Nuxt 4 application
│ ├── app/
│ │ ├── pages/admin/ # Admin dashboard pages
│ │ ├── pages/setup/ # Onboarding wizard
│ │ ├── components/ # Editor, forms, media, setup components
│ │ ├── layouts/ # Admin + public layouts
│ │ └── composables/ # Auth session, admin access, editor helpers
│ ├── shared/lib/ # Code shared by app and server (TipTap renderer, base64, slugs…)
│ ├── tests/ # Unit, integration and E2E tests (for the packages too)
│ └── server/
│ ├── api/v1/ # REST API handlers (and the MCP endpoint)
│ ├── middleware/ # Site resolution, auth, redirects, maintenance
│ ├── plugins/ # Plugin loader, theme resolver
│ ├── routes/ # sitemap.xml, robots.txt, feed.xml
│ ├── scheduled/ # Scheduled task logic (wrapped by tasks/)
│ └── utils/ # Permissions, audit, rate limiting, providers
├── packages/
│ ├── canvas/ # Canvas page builder — block components + editor (@nuxflow/canvas)
│ ├── db/ # Drizzle schema + migrations — D1-only, no client factory
│ ├── cli/ # `nuxflow` CLI — scaffold/build/deploy plugins and themes
│ └── create-nuxflow-app/ # `pnpm create nuxflow-app` scaffolder
└── themes/
└── default/ # theme.css — reference for every token and selector a theme can use
@nuxflow/canvas and @nuxflow/db are private/internal to the monorepo — only @nuxflow/cli and create-nuxflow-app are published to npm. Contact forms, memberships, and HTML embeds are core features of apps/nuxflow, not separate bundled plugin packages. Dynamic (third-party) plugins have no shared SDK package to depend on — see the External Plugin Development Guide.
Documentation
For detailed information on how to install and use NuxFlow, please refer to our documentation:
- Installation Guide — Step-by-step setup for local development and Cloudflare deployment.
- User Guide — A comprehensive manual for managing content and site settings.
- Payments & Memberships Setup — Configure Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, or Paddle; set up webhooks; gate content.
- Documentation Index — The entry point for all documentation.
- Security — Algorithms, design decisions, and infrastructure properties that protect user data.
Getting Started
Prerequisites
| Tool | Version | Install |
|---|
| Node.js | 22+ | nvm install 22 |
| pnpm | 9+ | npm install -g pnpm |
| Wrangler | 4+ | included as a project dependency (pnpm exec wrangler), or pnpm add -g wrangler |
[!IMPORTANT]
NuxFlow requires a Cloudflare Workers Paid plan ($5/month minimum) to run at all — not just for optional features like dynamic plugins. The Free plan's CPU time limit is too tight for a full Nuxt SSR CMS in general use.
1. Clone and install
git clone https://github.com/NuxFlow/NuxFlow.git
cd NuxFlow
pnpm install
2. Copy Wrangler Configuration
NuxFlow uses Wrangler for local development and deployment. Copy the example wrangler configuration inside the app folder:
cp apps/nuxflow/wrangler.toml.example apps/nuxflow/wrangler.toml
3. Create a local .env
cp apps/nuxflow/.env.example apps/nuxflow/.env
Set NUXT_BETTER_AUTH_SECRET to a random value of 32+ characters (e.g. node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('base64url'))"). This file is only for local development — the dev server reads it; it's never deployed. See Environment Variables for the full reference.
No database setup is needed locally: wrangler dev creates a local D1 database, and migrations apply automatically on the first request.
4. Start the dev server
pnpm dev
This runs wrangler dev, which auto-provisions a local D1 database — there's no separate frontend-only dev mode. Open http://localhost:8787/setup — the onboarding wizard walks through the remaining configuration. Once completed, your admin control panel is permanently accessible at http://localhost:8787/admin.
Deployment
Cloudflare Workers
The full walkthrough is in the Installation Guide. In short, from apps/nuxflow (no .env needed — that's local-only):
wrangler login
# Create the database, KV namespace, and media bucket; paste the printed ids into wrangler.toml
wrangler d1 create nuxflow
wrangler kv namespace create PLUGIN_KV
wrangler kv namespace create PLUGIN_KV --preview
wrangler r2 bucket create nuxflow-media
# Build and deploy (note: `pnpm run deploy` — plain `pnpm deploy` is a different, built-in pnpm command)
pnpm run deploy
# Add the auth secret straight away (a new random value, not your local one), then open /setup
wrangler secret put NUXT_BETTER_AUTH_SECRET
# Optional, for the recommended Cloudflare email provider:
wrangler email sending enable yourdomain.com
Migrations run automatically on the first request after deployment.
The wrangler.toml in apps/nuxflow/ is preconfigured with the nodejs_compat compatibility flag, the KV namespace for dynamic plugins, the WorkerLoader binding, and the scheduled cron trigger for auto-publishing.
Why Exclusively Cloudflare Workers?
Unlike traditional CMS platforms built for legacy VPS servers or complex AWS infrastructures, NuxFlow is built from the ground up to utilize Cloudflare's edge capabilities:
- Zero Cold Starts: Served instantly from Cloudflare's global edge runtime.
- Edge Sandboxing: Sandboxed plugin modules are hot-loaded at the edge using the native Cloudflare Dynamic Workers API (
WorkerLoader), a feature not natively available on AWS Lambda or general Node servers.
- D1 & KV Cache: Database read/writes are replicated globally on D1 SQLite bindings with KV asset speed.
Environment Variables
Variables use the NUXT_ prefix (Turnstile's secret is the one exception). Locally they go in apps/nuxflow/.env; in production, set secrets with wrangler secret put <NAME> and non-secret values under [vars] in wrangler.toml. .env is never deployed. Most provider keys can instead be entered per site in the admin Settings, which takes priority.
| Variable | Required | Description |
|---|
NUXT_BETTER_AUTH_SECRET | ✅ | Session signing secret — minimum 32 characters |
NUXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL | | Fallback site URL (with scheme), used only when a request has no site domain to go by. Not needed for a normal install |
NUXT_EMAIL_PROVIDER | | console (default) · cloudflare · resend · brevo · zepto — cloudflare needs no key, just the send_email binding in wrangler.toml. Usually chosen in Settings → Email instead |
NUXT_RESEND_API_KEY | | Resend API key (re_…) |
NUXT_BREVO_API_KEY | | Brevo API key (xkeysib-…) |
NUXT_ZEPTO_API_KEY | | ZeptoMail API key |
NUXT_CLOUDFLARE_IMAGES_TOKEN | | Cloudflare Images API token |
NUXT_CLOUDFLARE_ACCOUNT_ID | | Cloudflare account ID |
NUXT_CLOUDFLARE_IMAGES_DELIVERY_URL | | Image delivery base URL |
NUXT_CLOUDFLARE_STREAM_TOKEN | | Cloudflare Stream API token |
NUXT_PUBLIC_CLOUDFLARE_IMAGES_DELIVERY_URL | | Same value, exposed to the client |
CLOUDFLARE_TURNSTILE_SECRET_KEY | | Turnstile secret key. The site key goes in Settings → Integrations; set both or neither |
NUXT_PUBLIC_ACCOUNTS_URL | | Central sign-in domain — required before a second site can be created (see the Installation Guide) |
NUXT_STRIPE_SECRET_KEY | | Payments — Stripe secret key |
NUXT_STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET | | Payments — Stripe webhook signing secret |
NUXT_LS_API_KEY | | Payments — Lemon Squeezy API key |
NUXT_LS_STORE_ID | | Payments — Lemon Squeezy store ID |
Development Commands
# Dev server — runs `wrangler dev` (localhost:8787, D1 auto-provisioned)
pnpm dev
# Run all unit tests
pnpm test
# Run unit tests in watch mode
pnpm test:watch
# Run end-to-end tests (requires running dev server)
pnpm test:e2e
# TypeScript type-check (all packages)
pnpm typecheck
# Lint
pnpm lint
# Production build
pnpm build
# Deploy to Cloudflare (from apps/nuxflow — `pnpm run deploy`, not the built-in `pnpm deploy`)
cd apps/nuxflow && pnpm run deploy
# Generate a migration after a schema change (migrations apply automatically on the next request)
pnpm --filter @nuxflow/db generate
Plugins
Plugins extend NuxFlow with new server routes and Canvas blocks. Each plugin runs as an isolated Worker with no outbound network access, and its block code renders only inside a sandboxed iframe.
Creating a dynamic plugin
Dynamic plugins are standalone packages built and deployed independently from NuxFlow itself. The CLI (pnpm add -g @nuxflow/cli, or prefix each command with npx @nuxflow/cli) handles the full lifecycle.
# Scaffold a new plugin project
nuxflow plugin create
# Generate your Ed25519 publisher keypair (do this once — keep the private key secret)
nuxflow plugin keygen
# Build (compiles server Worker + client bundle, computes SHA-256 checksums)
nuxflow plugin build
# Deploy to a NuxFlow site, with an API key from Admin → Settings → API keys
# ("Install and remove plugins")
export NUXFLOW_SITE=https://your-site.com
export NUXFLOW_API_KEY=nf_...
nuxflow plugin deploy
# Push an update
nuxflow plugin update
The server verifies the Ed25519 signature and SHA-256 checksums on install and on every request. Code that fails verification is rejected before execution.
See the plugin development guide for the full authoring guide, including how to register Canvas block types with a field schema.
Themes & Visual Customizer
Visual Customizer
The Visual Customizer is a no-code, full-screen style editor built into the admin dashboard. Open it from Admin → Themes → Open customizer.
The left panel gives you point-and-click controls for:
- Colour scheme — Auto (follows each visitor's OS), Light, or Dark
- Accent colour — colour picker + hex input + quick swatches, injected as
--nuxflow-primary
- Link colour — defaults to accent; independently overridable
- Page background — separate light-mode and dark-mode background colours with quick presets
- Body & heading fonts — 17 Google Fonts across sans-serif, serif, and monospace families
- Font size — XS / SM / MD / LG / XL step scale
- Heading weight — Light through Extra Bold
- Line spacing — Tight / Normal / Relaxed
- Corner radius — None through Pill, with visual previews
- Section spacing — Compact / Normal / Spacious, scales the vertical padding between page sections
- Content width — Narrow (720 px) / Default (960 px) / Wide (1200 px) / Full
The right panel shows a live iframe preview of your actual site, updating as you change controls (300 ms debounce). Use the device toggle to switch between Desktop, Tablet, and Mobile viewports. Click Publish to write the generated CSS to a managed theme and activate it instantly.
Themes (CSS packages)
A theme is a CSS file (plus optional theme.json metadata and demo.json seed content) — not a Nuxt layer or Vue components. Theme CSS is stored in Cloudflare KV and injected as an inline <style> block into every SSR response, so activating a theme is instant and needs no redeploy or Worker rebuild.
Default theme reference
themes/default/assets/css/theme.css is the authoritative, heavily-commented reference for every CSS token and selector a theme can target — use it as the starting point for any new theme. examples/hello-theme/ is a small working example built from it.
Creating a theme
npx @nuxflow/cli theme create my-theme
Layout regions (structural theming)
CSS can restyle the built-in header/footer but can't replace their markup or behavior. For that, a dynamic plugin can register a block (see the plugin development guide) and be designated in Admin → Themes → Layout regions to render in place of the built-in header/footer on every public page. Falls back to the built-in components when unset, so this is purely additive.
Contributing
Contributions of all kinds are welcome — bug fixes, features, documentation, and plugin/theme submissions.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full guide including branch naming, commit conventions, and how to submit a pull request.
Security
NuxFlow uses Argon2id for password hashing (OWASP 2024 first choice), AES-256-GCM for sensitive settings at rest, Ed25519 signatures for plugin code integrity, and runs on Cloudflare Workers V8 isolates with no shared memory between requests or tenants.
See docs/security.md for the full breakdown — algorithms, parameters, design rationale, and the Cloudflare edge isolation model.
Found a vulnerability? Please do not open a public issue. See SECURITY.md for the responsible disclosure process.
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
