cms_guide
CMS Guide is a docs-as-code in-admin help system for Drupal. Editor guide content lives as Markdown files in a module, is version-controlled alongside the rest of your site's code, and is imported into the admin UI where content editors can read it.
If your team writes docs like code — pull requests, diffs, review, CI — this module matches that workflow. Good fit for agencies handing off a site, multi-site or distribution setups sharing a core guide, and projects where screenshots live next to the Markdown that references them.
- Markdown-authored content. Write guide content in .md files alongside your code. The
importer converts them to HTML at import time using league/commonmark.
- Plugin-based content packs. The @CMSGuideContent plugin lets any companion module
contribute content. One install can compose a guide from several sources — a shared "Drupal
basics" pack, a site-specific pack, per-client overrides — with no runtime coordination.
- Structured sections with deep-linking. A guide entry can have sub-sections that render
inline with anchor-based sidebar navigation, so editors can jump to a specific topic within a
page.
- Image-path placeholder. Reference screenshots with {{image_path}}/foo.png — the importer
rewrites the path so each content pack's images resolve from its own module directory.
- Editor-friendly admin integration. Guide pages are a custom entity type, available through
the admin toolbar, with Pathauto-generated URLs and a minimal text format.
- Re-importable. Re-running the importer updates existing entries (matched by slug) and
creates new ones, so the admin guide stays in lockstep with the codebase.
- Editor notes. Each guide page ships with a comments field so editors can leave internal
notes against the documentation itself.
After installing the module via Composer and enabling it with Drush, you need to provide
content. The contrib module ships empty — it's a framework, not a book.
1. Create a small companion module (a dozen lines of YAML, PHP, and Markdown — see the README
for the exact skeleton) or populate the module's own content/ directory.
2. Navigate to /admin/structure/cms-guide/import.
3. Select which content packs to import and submit.
4. Visit /admin/cms-guide or click CMS Guide in the admin toolbar to read the imported guide.
Re-running the importer reconciles the stored entries with the current content on disk. Changes to Markdown files flow through on the next import.