Building Pages

Lean CMS stores content in a database. Your ERB templates pull that content out using helpers. This section explains the full flow — from defining what content a page has, to seeding initial values, to rendering it in your own design.

The three-layer model

YAML structure file          Database                      Your ERB template
─────────────────────        ──────────────────────        ─────────────────────────
pages:                  →    lean_cms_page_contents   →    <%= page_content(@page,
  home:                       page | section | key           'hero', 'heading') %>
    sections:
      hero:
        heading:
          type: text
          default: "Welcome"

1. Structure — You define pages, sections, and fields in config/lean_cms_structure.yml
2. Seeding — rails lean_cms:generate_structure creates database rows from the YAML
3. Rendering — Your ERB calls helpers to retrieve and display the stored values

Content hierarchy

Every piece of CMS content has three coordinates:

Level	Example	Description
Page	home	Maps to a route/controller action
Section	hero	A named area within that page
Key	heading	An individual field within that section

Content is retrieved with page_content(@page, 'section', 'key').

Sections with edit overlays

Wrap any block of HTML in cms_editable_section to give logged-in CMS users a hover-activated edit button:

<%= cms_editable_section(page: 'home', section: 'hero', display_title: 'Hero') do %>
  <section class="hero">
    <h1><%= page_content(@page, 'hero', 'heading') %></h1>
    <p><%= page_content(@page, 'hero', 'subheading') %></p>
  </section>
<% end %>

When a CMS editor hovers over this section, an “Edit” button appears. Visitors see nothing — no wrappers, no extra markup.

Next steps

• Your First Page — a complete walkthrough
• Content Types — all 9 field types and how to render them
• Seeding Content — define your structure in YAML

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Table of contents

• Your First Page
• Content Types
• Seeding Content