ForgeCMS

ForgeCMS is a Flask-based blogging and CMS application backed by MariaDB. It includes authentication, an admin workflow for draft/scheduled/published content, Markdown authoring, and media upload support.

Overview

What ForgeCMS provides

• User registration and login
• Admin content management experience
• Post workflow states (draft, scheduled, published, archived)
• Preview support for unpublished posts
• SEO-friendly slugs and Bootstrap-based responsive UI
• Image upload support for post media

Repository layout

• app/ – Flask application package (blueprints, models, app factory)
• templates/ – Jinja2 HTML templates
• static/ – CSS and uploaded/static assets
• migrations/ – Database migration artifacts (including migrations/manual/ SQL files)
• wsgi.py – WSGI entrypoint for local/dev server startup

Tech stack

• Python 3.8+
• Flask
• SQLAlchemy + Flask-Migrate
• MariaDB 10.5+
• Bootstrap 5

Installation

1) Clone the repository

git clone <repository-url>
cd forgecms

2) Create and activate a virtual environment

python -m venv venv
# Linux/macOS
source venv/bin/activate
# Windows (PowerShell)
# .\venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

3) Install dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

4) Create MariaDB database and user

CREATE DATABASE forgecms CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
CREATE USER 'forgecms'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your_password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON forgecms.* TO 'forgecms'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

5) Configure environment variables

Copy .env.example to .env and update values as needed:

cp .env.example .env

Example values:

FLASK_APP=app
FLASK_ENV=development
SECRET_KEY=change-this-to-a-secure-secret-key
DB_HOST=localhost
DB_USER=forgecms
DB_PASSWORD=your_password
DB_NAME=forgecms
UPLOAD_FOLDER=static/uploads
MAX_CONTENT_LENGTH=16777216

Notes:

• UPLOAD_FOLDER should stay inside static/ so uploaded media is web-accessible.
• MAX_CONTENT_LENGTH is in bytes (16777216 = 16 MB).

6) Apply database migrations

flask db upgrade

Usage

Run the development server

flask run

By default, Flask serves on http://127.0.0.1:5000.

Create an admin user (Flask shell)

flask shell

from app import db
from app.models import User

admin = User(username='admin', email='admin@example.com', is_admin=True)
admin.set_password('your-secure-password')
db.session.add(admin)
db.session.commit()

Useful maintenance commands

# Create a new migration after model changes
flask db migrate -m "describe change"

# Apply pending migrations
flask db upgrade

# Backup database
mysqldump -u your_user -p forgecms > backup.sql

Production notes

For production, run with a WSGI server (for example Gunicorn) behind NGINX, use HTTPS, and set a strong SECRET_KEY.

Community and governance

• Contributing guide
• Code of Conduct
• License (GNU GPLv3)