Content Manager

The component that turns scanned entries into a finished manifest. It resolves public locations, runs the Markdown and plugin pipeline, and builds the content graph and query indexes.

Responsibilities

• Resolve the public location of each entry.
• Run the Markdown and plugin pipeline over each entry.
• Build the content graph and content index.
• Assemble the manifest and collect diagnostics.

Order of work

Location resolution runs first so later hooks and pages can rely on a stable permalink. Processing follows, then the graph, then the manifest is finalized.

What it does not do

The Content Manager does not read files. That belongs to the Content Source.

Content manager type

The ContentManager class (packages/core/src/content/content_manager.ts) is the core orchestrator. Key methods include:

• getManifest() — builds and returns the full ContentManifest, resolving all locations, running the plugin pipeline, and constructing the content graph
• getContentLocations() — returns a ReadonlyMap<string, ContentPublicLocation> mapping each slug to its resolved public location (slug, permalink, redirects, metadata)
• getContentGraph() — returns a ContentGraph for querying incoming/outgoing/neighbor links
• getBacklinks(targetSlug) — returns backlinks to a given entry
• inspect() — returns an ContentInspection with entries, content index, and diagnostics
• getPagePaths() and getPageRoutes() — returns declared plugin page paths and routes

Example manifest entry excerpt visible through getManifest():

{
  slug: "notes/hello",
  permalink: "/docs/notes/hello/",
  contentId: "abc123",
  frontmatter: { id: "abc123", title: "Hello", tags: [] },
  publishing: { routable: true, discoverable: true, status: "published" },
  html: "<p>Hello world</p>",
  tags: [],
  links: [],
  backlinks: [],
  assets: [],
}

The Content Manager coordinates these components internally:

• ContentIndexBuilder (packages/core/src/content/content_index_builder.ts) — resolves slug variants and ambiguities
• ContentLocationResolver — resolves public locations, including plugin-adjusted paths
• PluginRuntime (packages/core/src/plugin/plugin_runtime.ts) — runs plugin hooks (onContentLoaded, extendContentGraph, onManifestCreated, etc.)
• ContentBuildCoordinator — manages incremental build state and output change detection

Related terms