CMS Freedom

Project Description

This project aims to tackle two obstacles in the way of freely transferring sites from one CMS or platform to another: namely that different systems maintain non-compatible representations for a site’s theme and custom data types.

For example, consider three popular platforms:

• Jekyll uses the Liquid templating language and can read data in Markdown front matter or in external resources like a CSV.
• TYPO3 uses its own Fluid templates with TypoScript configuration and can read custom elements through one of many data processors.
• WordPress relies on its own block-based templating system and reads data from variants of its post type as well as meta key/value pairs for the post

Because these systems are unique, direct conversion is not possible, they require adapters. This project will build these missing theme adapters and data type adapters, enabling smoother transitions between platforms.

LLMs will power the extraction and generation of compatible visual representations, as well as a mapping from each custom content type into those representations. An intermediate format for layout and templating will unify efforts to add new adapters, as they will only need to provide the import from or the export to that intermediate format.

Target Audience

• Developers & Agencies: Who frequently migrate websites between CMS platforms and need automated solutions.
• Hosting Providers: Seeking to offer easy site transfers for their customers.
• CMS Contributors: Looking to improve interoperability between platforms.
• Open-Source Enthusiasts: Interested in contributing to a tool that promotes data freedom and portability.

Hackathon Goals

• Develop theme adapters to translate layouts between different templating engines (e.g., Liquid → Fluid → Block Templates).
• Build data type adapters to map structured content (e.g., custom fields, taxonomies) across CMS platforms.
• Implement an intermediate format for layout and content mapping, ensuring long-term adaptability.
• Leverage AI to automate the generation of compatible visual and structural representations.
• Create a functional prototype for at least one end-to-end migration path (e.g., Jekyll → WordPress).

By the end of the hackathon, we aim to have a proof-of-concept demonstrating automated site migration across at least two CMS platforms, laying the foundation for a fully-fledged open-source solution.