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

1. Content is data, not pages — Structure content for meaning, not presentation
2. Single source of truth — Avoid content duplication
3. Future-proof — Design for channels that don’t exist yet
4. Editor-centric — Optimize for the people creating content

References

Start with the reference that matches the modeling decision in front of you, instead of loading every topic at once. See references/ for detailed guidance on specific topics:

• references/separation-of-concerns.md — Separating content from presentation
• references/reference-vs-embedding.md — When to use references vs embedded objects
• references/content-reuse.md — Content reuse patterns and the reuse spectrum
• references/taxonomy-classification.md — Flat, hierarchical, and faceted classification