Content Strategies

ACMS supports two content delivery strategies. The right choice depends on how often your content changes and your performance requirements.

Build-Time (Static)

Content is fetched once during the build process and baked into the output. This is the simplest approach for most sites:

export default defineConfig({
  strategy: 'build-time',
});

Your content is resolved at build time, so pages load with zero runtime overhead.

Runtime (Dynamic)

Content is fetched at runtime from the storage adapter. This enables updates without rebuilds:

export default defineConfig({
  strategy: 'runtime',
});

Content updates are reflected immediately without redeploying.

Comparison

	Build-Time	Runtime
Performance	Fastest — content is static HTML	Slightly slower — fetches on each request
Content freshness	Stale until next build	Always up-to-date
Hosting	Any static host (Vercel, Netlify, S3)	Requires server or edge runtime
Best for	Marketing sites, blogs, docs	Dashboards, frequently updated content
Rebuild needed?	Yes, on every content change	No

Framework Recommendations

Framework	Recommended Strategy	Notes
Next.js	Build-time with ISR	Use revalidate for periodic updates
Astro	Build-time	Static by default, ideal fit
SvelteKit	Build-time	Use prerender for static pages
Nuxt	Build-time	Use nuxi generate for static output
Remix	Runtime	Loader-based, natural fit for runtime
Vanilla JS / SPA	Runtime	No build step to bake content into

Mixing Strategies

You can use both strategies in the same project. For example, use build-time for marketing pages and runtime for a user-facing dashboard:

// Marketing page — built statically
export async function getStaticProps() {
  return { props: { title: acms.marketing.title } };
}

// Dashboard page — fetched at runtime
export default function Dashboard() {
  return <h1>{acms.dashboard.heading}</h1>;
}

The strategy setting in acms.config.ts sets the default, but your framework’s data-fetching patterns ultimately control when content is resolved.

Next Steps

• Set up your Configuration with the right strategy
• Choose a Storage Adapter for production
• Read the Deployment guide for your platform