---
summary: 'An AI-first headless CMS with three services: backend API, admin UI, and
  a read-only delivery renderer.'
audience: everyone
title: "ScaiCMS \u2014 AI-first Content Management"
path: overview
status: published
---

# ScaiCMS — AI-first Content Management

ScaiCMS is a headless, multi-tenant content management system built so that
both humans **and AI agents** are first-class authors. Content, assets, and
documentation are addressable through a stable REST API, an MCP tool surface
for agents, and a Python SDK.

## At a glance

- **Headless** — JSON-first API; pick your own rendering stack (or use the
  bundled Starlette delivery service).
- **Multi-tenant** — one deployment can serve any number of sites with
  independent template packs, content trees, locales, and permissions.
- **AI-native** — every read/write surface (REST, MCP, SDK) is documented and
  designed for agent consumption. The docs subsystem ships an [agent guide
  bundle](https://scailabs.ai/docs/scaicms/concepts/docs-subsystem) and
  scoped API keys so agents can be granted exactly what they need.
- **Markdown-first documentation** — the docs subsystem is a separate
  first-class module (versioned, hierarchical, hybrid-searchable) that lives
  alongside regular content.
- **Powerful but boring stack** — FastAPI + SQLAlchemy + MariaDB + Redis +
  Weaviate + S3-compatible storage. No magical glue; every component is
  observable and replaceable.

## Three services

ScaiCMS is split into three independent services that share the same database:

| Service | Role | Port (dev) |
|---|---|---|
| **backend** | FastAPI API, auth, RBAC, MCP server | 8000 |
| **admin** | SolidJS + Tailwind/daisyUI admin UI | 3000 |
| **delivery** | Starlette read-only content/docs renderer | 8080 |

Background tasks (indexing, webhook delivery, email) run in an **ARQ worker**
process driven by Redis.

## Who it's for

- **Brand & product teams** that want a fast, modern CMS without lock-in.
- **Engineering teams** building AI-augmented workflows (codegen, summarisation,
  agent-authored documentation).
- **Multi-product organisations** that need shared content infrastructure
  across multiple sites and brands.

## Next steps

- [Quickstart](/docs/scaicms/quickstart) — get a dev environment running.
- [Concepts](/docs/scaicms/concepts) — core ideas: sites, content types,
  template packs, RBAC, the docs subsystem.
- [Tutorials](/docs/scaicms/tutorials) — end-to-end walkthroughs.
- [Reference](/docs/scaicms/reference) — field types, endpoints, CLI.