Byline CMS
The open-source headless CMS for original content.
Built for publishers whose credibility is the product — content that is original, attributable and auditable, and therefore accountable.
Field Notes from the Mekong Delta
By Dr. Linh Tran · Mekong Research Collective
A decade of monitoring has shown how salinity intrusion is reshaping the delta's rice and aquaculture systems. Our 2026 survey extends that record to forty-two stations across three provinces.
What follows are the field notes behind the published dataset — the observations, instruments and corrections that make the findings checkable, not just citable.
Every figure in this report links back to a station log: an instrument, a technician, a timestamp. When a reader — or a model — asks where a number came from, the answer is on the record.
Every document carries its history: who wrote it, who changed it, and which version is the one you stand behind.
The principles
Built for content that matters
As fluent text becomes free to generate, the content that gains value is the opposite kind.
01
Original
A genuine, human-authored source with one canonical version — and it's yours.
02
Attributable
Provenance preserved: who wrote it, which institution stands behind it, when, and in which language.
03
Auditable
Versions, editorial trails and citations — ask “where did this come from?” and get a real answer.
and therefore
Accountable.
Because your content is original, attributable and auditable, you can stand behind it — and your readers can hold you to it.
Aligned with where content governance is heading: provenance, attribution and verifiable sourcing.
Ownership
Your content. Your database. Your code.
Byline runs on infrastructure you can inspect, export and walk away with — nothing about your collection is held hostage.
- PostgreSQL you can hand to anyone — no proprietary storage formats
- Complete data exports and regular full backups
- Full source code under the Mozilla Public License 2.0
- Headless APIs — bring any frontend, and swap it anytime
- Free to migrate whenever you choose
$ pg_dump byline > collection-2026-06-12.sql
✓ 14,382 documents · 6 locales · complete
$ ls exports/
content/ media/ schema.sql manifest.json
$ head -1 LICENSE
Mozilla Public License Version 2.0Capabilities
Everything you need
The practical foundations of a content-driven application — structured, fast and standards-correct.
Headless & API-first
Clean, documented APIs that work with any frontend framework or technology stack.
Standards-correct multilingual
Canonical URLs, hreflang alternates and per-locale sitemaps — attribution that survives translation.
Versioning & workflow
Drafts, review and publish, with an audit trail behind every document.
Fast by default
Optimized for performance with edge caching and fast content delivery.
AI-ready, on your terms
Structured, RAG-ready content that preserves attribution — AI where it reinforces credibility, not where it risks it.
Open source & community-driven
Built in the open, with community feedback and contributions at its core.
v3 · stable · open source
Byline CMS is at a stable v3 and moving quickly. Browse the docs, follow development, and join the discussion — tell us what you're building.