Content Modeling Best Practices
Principles for designing structured content that's flexible, reusable, and maintainable. These concepts apply to any headless CMS but include Sanity-specific implementation notes.
When to Apply
Reference these guidelines when:
Starting a new project and designing the content model Evaluating whether content should be structured or free-form Deciding between references and embedded content Planning for multi-channel content delivery Refactoring existing content structures Core Principles Content is data, not pages — Structure content for meaning, not presentation Single source of truth — Avoid content duplication Future-proof — Design for channels that don't exist yet Editor-centric — Optimize for the people creating content Resources
See resources/ for detailed guidance on specific topics:
Separation of content and presentation Reference vs embedding strategies Content reuse patterns Taxonomy and classification