Content lifecycle

Every content item in Smeldr has a lifecycle. It is not optional, and it cannot be disabled. This is what guarantees that draft content never leaks to the public — not by convention, but by architecture.

The four states

Draft → Published
Draft → Scheduled → Published
Published → Archived

Why 410 for archived, not 404? A 410 Gone response tells search engines the content was intentionally removed. Google de-indexes 410 pages significantly faster than 404 pages. For a CMS, this is almost always what you want.

What Smeldr enforces automatically

None of this requires configuration. Smeldr applies it to every registered content module.

Transitions via the HTTP API

Content transitions happen through standard PUT requests:

# Publish a draft
PUT /posts/my-post
{"status": "published"}

# Schedule for future publication
PUT /posts/my-post
{"status": "scheduled", "scheduled_at": "2026-06-01T09:00:00Z"}

# Archive a published post
PUT /posts/my-post
{"status": "archived"}

PublishedAt is set automatically when a post transitions to Published — whether immediately or via the scheduler. You cannot set it directly.

Scheduled publishing

Smeldr runs an internal scheduler. No external cron or queue required. When scheduled_at arrives, Smeldr:

1. Transitions the item to Published 2. Sets PublishedAt 3. Fires AfterPublish on the signal bus 4. Regenerates the sitemap and RSS feed

The scheduler is adaptive — it wakes up earlier when items are close to their scheduled time and backs off when nothing is due.

Slug stability and redirects

Smeldr tracks every URL a content item has ever had. Renaming a slug or changing a module prefix generates a 301 redirect automatically. You never need to manage redirects by hand.

Subscribing to lifecycle events

Use app.OnSignal to react to lifecycle transitions in your application code:

app.OnSignal(smeldr.AfterPublish, func(ctx context.Context, ev smeldr.SignalEvent) error {
    log.Printf("published: %s — %s", ev.Type, ev.URL)
    return nil
})

app.OnSignal(smeldr.AfterArchive, func(ctx context.Context, ev smeldr.SignalEvent) error {
    return cache.Invalidate(ev.URL)
})

All seven lifecycle signals are available:

Handlers are async, do not block HTTP responses, and run with a 100 ms timeout. Multiple handlers per signal are supported. See Signal bus for full details.

Module-level hooks (Before signals)

For hooks that need to intercept or modify a write operation before it completes, use smeldr.On[T] as a module option. Before handlers can return an error to abort the operation.

smeldr.NewModule((*Post)(nil),
    smeldr.At("/posts"),
    smeldr.Repo(repo),

    // Runs before create — can abort by returning an error
    smeldr.On(smeldr.BeforeCreate, func(ctx smeldr.Context, p *Post) error {
        p.Author = ctx.User().Name
        return nil
    }),

    // Runs before publish — can abort
    smeldr.On(smeldr.BeforeUpdate, func(ctx smeldr.Context, p *Post) error {
        if p.Status == smeldr.Published && p.Cover.URL == "" {
            return smeldr.Err("cover", "required when publishing")
        }
        return nil
    }),
)

Outbound webhooks

Webhook delivery is built on top of lifecycle signals. Register an HTTPS endpoint with App.Webhooks and Smeldr will POST a signed JSON payload on every matching event. See Webhooks for setup and payload format.