Devani OSS — User Guide

Featured

Generate an MCP key in Settings, paste the connector URL into Claude or ChatGPT, and your AI can edit pages, write posts, manage products, and roll anything back — safely.

What Devani is (and isn't)

Devani is a free, open-source CMS with no database — your whole site is plain files. Editor, blog, SEO, forms, and a full store built in; AI editing over MCP; MIT licensed.

Getting started

Install Devani, run the setup wizard, and stay up to date.

What Devani is (and isn't)

Devani is a free, open-source CMS with no database — your whole site is plain files. Editor, blog, SEO, forms, and a full store built in; AI editing over MCP; MIT licensed.

Getting started

Updating Devani

Updates are opt-in: Devani tells you when a new release exists and what changed, and you decide when to install it from the System Update page. Nothing ever auto-installs.

Getting started

The setup wizard

First visit to a fresh install lands on the setup wizard: create your admin account, connect the integrated services (one verification email), and your site scaffolds itself.

Getting started

Install Devani on your own server

One command takes a bare Ubuntu server to a live Devani site — nginx, PHP, HTTPS, and your domain, all configured. Here's the walkthrough, plus the gotchas we've actually hit.

Getting started

Editing & content

The visual editor, pages and blog, SEO, and media.

The media library & upload limits

Upload once and get every size — automatic WebP variants served from a global CDN. If an upload is rejected for size or file type, those limits live in your Tonta account.

Editing & content

SEO: meta fields, sitemap & redirects

Every page carries its own SEO metadata — title, description, canonical, robots, Open Graph and Twitter cards, JSON-LD schema. The sitemap maintains itself; redirects are one click.

Editing & content

Pages, blog posts & scheduling

One editor for pages and posts. Drafts stay private, published pages go live immediately, and posts can be scheduled for a future date. The blog index and sitemap maintain themselves.

Editing & content

The visual editor

Edit pages in place: click text to change it, add sections and elements from the block picker, drag to rearrange. Saves are sanitized and snapshotted automatically.

Editing & content

Store & payments

Products, inventory, discounts, checkout, and orders.

Bookings & video calls with OpenLagoon

Embed a booking page on any page — free intro calls or paid sessions, with scheduling and payment handled by OpenLagoon. One API key in Settings.

Store & payments

Orders, customer accounts & subscriptions

Track and fulfil orders, watch sales live, and give your buyers a passwordless account page where they can see orders, re-download digital purchases, and manage subscriptions.

Store & payments

Products, inventory & discounts

Four sale models per product — physical, digital, pay-what-you-want, subscription — plus variants, live inventory with low-stock visibility, discount codes, collections, and a real cart.

Store & payments

Set up the store: Stripe, test mode & going live

Connect your Stripe keys, run a test checkout, then flip to live. Stripe is Devani's only checkout provider — payments go directly to your Stripe account.

Store & payments

AI, forms & recovery

Connect Claude or ChatGPT, set up forms and email, and roll back mistakes.

Connect Claude or ChatGPT (MCP)

Generate an MCP key in Settings, paste the connector URL into Claude or ChatGPT, and your AI can edit pages, write posts, manage products, and roll anything back — safely.

AI, forms & recovery

Snapshots & rollback

Per-edit snapshots for instant undo, scheduled content snapshots for point-in-time recovery, and hourly storage backups for settings — what each layer covers and how to restore.

AI, forms & recovery

Forms & email providers

Embed forms with the Sendl block, choose a transactional provider (Mailjet, Postmark, or SMTP) for the email your site sends, and wire Mailchimp for newsletter signups.

AI, forms & recovery