CombinaryStream

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Mike Herchel's Blog: Buy your tickets now to the DrupalCon Gala!

Buy your tickets now to the DrupalCon Gala! mherchel Fri, 02/27/2026 - 13:55 read more

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The Drop Times: Dan Frost on Drupal’s AI-Ready Architecture, Controlled AI, and AI-Mode SEO

Dan Frost brings a maintenance-first view to Drupal’s evolution and the realities of AI in production environments. In this interview, the Adaptive Managing Director reflects on the Drupal 7 to 8 shift, why structured architecture matters for AI readiness, and how “controlled AI” depends on guardrails and observability. He also discusses headless Drupal as an emerging direction, how charities are adopting conversational interfaces, and why SEO strategy in 2026 increasingly means being present inside AI-driven search surfaces, not only ranking in traditional results. read more

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mark.ie: A new demo theme for LocalGov Drupal

A new demo theme for LocalGov Drupal

This month I gave myself one job to do: redesign the Scarfolk theme.

markconroy 27th Feb 2026 read more

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DrupalCon News & Updates: The “Hallway Track” is where it’s going on at DrupalCon!

Do you have a favorite restaurant with a “secret” menu item? Well, DrupalCon has its own secret. And, I’m spilling the beans. If you ask any DrupalCon veteran, what the best thing about the events are, they’ll say, “The Hallway Track”. Huh?

What is the “Hallway Track”?

The “Hallway Track” is the space around and between official schedule items. This might be in the actual hallway, in the sponsor floor, at the parties, or even in a taxi ride to the airport.

Space like this lets serendipity happen. You might get bored and join a conversation and make new friends. You might hear of a problem, and think of a new business idea. Or…

Stories from the Hallway Track

I reached out to several friends to get hear some stories about their experiences in the hallway track

Nikki Flores tells about how she ran into a colleague at DrupalCon and became fast friends!

I had worked with her for almost 2 years, had seen pictures of her family and her dog and her vacations. We had always been connecting weekly and sometimes twice a week on our teleconferences. I never saw her in person until she called my name from across the hall at DrupalCon. When we saw each other, we were so excited because we recognized each other's faces!

Carlos Ospina tells the story about how he took his son to DrupalCon, and that led to the genesis of the IXP program.

I wanted my son to understand why I love this community so much, so we flew him out to Seattle. I told him I knew a lot of people there, but since it was contribution day, there would not be much time to socialize.

After COVID, he agreed to join us again for Portland in 2022. The Sunday before the event, we met some friends for breakfast. I spotted someone I thought I recognized and mentioned it. My son teased me, saying it was probably just because I think I know everyone at DrupalCon.

We sat down, and in the middle of breakfast Eduardo Telaya walked by our table. I called out to him, and he came over. We hugged, and suddenly we were no longer just five people having breakfast. A couple of other friends stopped by to say hello, and our table grew. My son looked at me and said, “So maybe you really do know everyone at DrupalCon.”

I think that moment stuck with him. When we started talking about career options, he agreed to give Drupal a try and came with us to Pittsburgh in 2023 to look for a job. After all, Dad knows everyone, right?

Unfortunately, that was when the hiring slowdown was becoming clear. It was the first time the Drupal Association organized a job fair, and we attended. At one point I had to step away to take a call, and my son did great on his own. He introduced himself, talked to people confidently, and put himself out there. But there were no real opportunities for someone in his position. He had just completed DrupalEasy, had no professional experience, and no background in computer science.

That experience led to conversations with Anilu, and from those conversations the IXP Program was born. It started as a way to help my son get a foothold. He has since moved on from Drupal to explore something different, but the program lives on. We are now approaching 1,750 contribution credits awarded, and six participants have gone through the program.

What began as something personal turned into something that helps others enter the community.

Mike Gifford tells several stories about how he met friends and started his journey to be an Accessibility Maintainer for Drupal Core.

I’ve had so many great conversations with people who have inspired me, challenged me, and made me laugh in the hallway of DrupalCons. Over coffee, lunch or just while trying to charge a device, leaning against the wall.

The first story that came to mind was trying to find Eriol Fox in DrupalCon Vienna. I am not sure what we were using to message each other, but there was a large delay between sending and receiving messages. Then there is the challenge of actually finding each other in these crazy conference centers. Anyways, we had a good time chatting, but she also pointed me to some folks that she had connected with in Japan. I was going to be going there and wanted to find some open source connections while there.

I think it was in DrupalCon Atlanta that I had great conversations with Stephen Mustgrave & Stephen Musgrave. We were all in slightly different breakout groups. I had confused the two of them only a month or two ago and remembered connecting with them and verifying that they are indeed not the same person.

I can’t remember when I ran into Mark Gifford, but it was in some hallway, where we talked about me mostly grabbing the @mgifford in so many new social platforms before he could. I guess he has some right to them.

I actually started contributing to Drupal’s accessibility after a hallway chat. It was some time before Drupal 7 was released, and I remember going up to Webchick and complaining about accessibility errors in Drupal. She turned around and suggested I could do something about it. I don’t know how many thousands of hours I’ve spent on fixing accessibility issues in Drupal since she made that suggestion. Thanks Angie.

Mike Anello intentionally avoided the assignment, but tells a great story about the contribution room!

Forget about the hallway - let’s talk about the contribution room track.

There’s no better way to learn something new and make meaningful personal connections than spending a few hours in a contribution room. There are a few Drupal events each year that I know I won’t be wasting any time listening to over-caffeinated Florida-based front-end developers rant at me about the future of front-end development. Instead, I arrive with an agenda to learn something new about some new Drupal thing by spending time in the contribution room helping to test, write documentation, or work on existing issues.

I can credit this method for supercharging my learning of single directory components, ECA, a good portion of the Drupal AI ecosystem, and more Views internals than I ever wanted (thanks, Lendude!)

At my first Drupal Dev Days (Ghent 2023, IIRC) one of my goals was to use my evolving PhpUnit test-writing skills to use in the contribution area. After talking with a few folks, I was introduced to Len Swaneveld, a core maintainer for the Views module. Len pointed me at a few potential issues to work on, and after reviewing a few of them, I settled on one that seemed like it was completable in a reasonable amount of time. What transpired over the next few weeks will be no surprise to anyone who’s ever worked on core Views code - nothing is simple.

But, the thing that I remember most about that issue is the time that Len spent with me (both in-person and online) mentoring me on some of the darker areas of the Views code base. It gave me an all-new perspective of the module as well as the challenges of maintaining it.

This process, and similar ones related to other areas of Drupal, I knew that I was improving my skills by learning from leaders in the community - all while I was helping them!

Perhaps the most rewarding part of it is the fact that after the event, a personal connection now exists - and it doesn’t feel forced. It is a perfectly natural thing to reach out to these new connections via email or Slack with a little, “it was great getting to know you a few weeks ago at Dev Days; I have a quick question for you…”

Networking is the reason for Drupal events - not presentations (sorry, presenters!)

Michael Richardson tells us how the hallway track led to the creation of DrupalCon Singapore!

For me it would be when I went to DrupalCon Lille with the wild idea of running something like a "DrupalCamp Asia", which would be focused on trying to get folks from all over the continent (and the Pacific) to connect together and share their Drupal stories, cultures, and experience for the first time in nearly 10 years.

Through the power of the hallway track in Lille, I was able to connect directly with sponsors, Drupal Association leadership, and regional community leaders, and over those few days the idea evolved into a fully fledged DrupalCon Asia with sponsors, organisers, and the support of the DA all aligned. What would have taken months to organise online was all put in place in just 3 days and a year later, DrupalCon Singapore was a massive success. I'm not sure that would have been possible without those first conversations half way across the world in Lille.

Baddý Breidert tells us how participating in the DrupalCon prenote led to multiple friendships!

My first DrupalCon was Amsterdam in 2014 and I remember going to that event not knowing anyone. During the Hallway Track I got to know MortenDK that introduced me to a lot of people and from that conference it always became a bit easier to attend DrupalCon. At DrupalCon Dublin 2016, Jam and others from the community invited me to join the pre-note which I gladly accepted. The pre-note always happened before the Driesnote and the purpose of the event was to entertain the keynote attendees and kick-off the conference. The show featured an Irish adventure theme, where the characters attempted to find a “pot of gold” while exploring the concept of “scope” in a humorous, technical, and musical “infotainment” style.

Cristina Chumillas tells how she went outside of the conference to find a magical donut, and brought it back to share!

Soooo on the first DrupalCon in Portland after covid, the day after committing Claro and Olivero, with Lauri, we went for a quick adventure to find a famous doughnut with bacon and maple syrup. At Voodoo Doughnuts.

Anyway, we were at the sprints and were working on Olivero issues, so by the time we left it was about to close. On the way it started raining A LOT and when we arrived they were closing and there were no more doughnuts. But since we were there we took the chance to get inside the shop and asked for it, and they still had one! So we bought it and ended up eating it with 8 people at the sprints.

JD Flynn perfectly wraps up the hallway track in his rendition.

To me, the hallway track is where the magical moments are found. It's where connections are made. It's where friendships begin. Sessions at events are amazing, and should definitely be attended. However, the real inspiration and sparks happen during spontaneous conversations that happen just because you bump into someone and start talking about this idea you've had or this bug you found. Before you know it, you're both sitting with your laptops out and building something together. That doesn't happen while sitting quietly in a session.

The "hallway" track isn't limited to just the hallway of the event's venue either. It carries over to the parties and the after parties where lifetime friendships and memories are formed. It's not an exaggeration to say that most of the people in my life who I consider good friends are good friends because of that spark that happened in the hallway, wherever that hallway might exist. It could be bonding over a drink, shared love of a type of food, randomly bumping into someone who looks familiar outside of the event, or picking the song at karaoke that gets everyone up and dancing. I owe some of the strongest relationships in my life, personally and professionally, to the hallway track.

Make space for the Hallway Track

As JD said, the hallway track is where the magic happens. But how do you find it?

You need to put yourself out there. Sit down at lunch tables where you don’t know anyone, and strike up conversations. Go to the event parties and talk to people in the lines at the bar. Join a trivia team with people that you don’t know!

You might just end up with some serendipity of your own!

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ImageX: Faster than Ever: Drupal’s Latest Performance Boost

Visitors form an impression of a site almost instantly. If those first moments feel smooth, they’ll keep exploring. If not, they’ll quietly close the tab. That challenge is even greater for content-rich websites, where each request can trigger complex rendering behind the scenes.

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mark.ie: Tim said "Let's work on WebMCP for Drupal"

Tim said "Let's work on WebMCP for Drupal"

I hadn't head of WebMCP, but now I'm mildly fascinated by the possibilities.

markconroy 25th Feb 2026 read more

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mark.ie: Drupal Workspaces Revisited

Drupal Workspaces Revisited

Got some issues with Drupal workspaces? I got your back.

markconroy 25th Feb 2026 read more

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Tag1 Insights: What I Learned Using AI for Drupal Development

At Tag1, we believe in proving AI within our own work before recommending it to clients. This post is part of our AI Applied content series, where team members share real stories of how they're using Artificial Intelligence and the insights and lessons they learn along the way. Here, Ajit Shinde (Senior Drupal Developer), explores how AI supported his work on the contributed Trash module, including a complex taxonomy hierarchy challenge, and what he discovered about getting real value from these tools.

How I Used AI to Tackle a Tricky Trash Module Challenge

I have been using AI for work for quite some time now for various personal projects. I was inspired and empowered by Tag1's internal AI workshop, and I started using it extensively for both internal projects and a challenging contrib module assignment. What surprised me most was not AI magically solving hard problems, but how much time it could save on the repetitive parts of the work, especially around writing and iterating on tests. I want to share what I discovered because some of it genuinely surprised me.

The Challenge of Adding Taxonomy Support to Trash

Wanting to find an issue to tackle with AI for my own learning experience, I picked up issue #3491947 to add taxonomy support to the Trash module. The Trash module provides soft-delete functionality for Drupal entities and, once configured, it lets you delete entities temporarily and restore them later or purge them permanently if needed. This sounds straightforward enough, but taxonomy terms have a wrinkle that makes things interesting. When you delete a parent term, Drupal core deletes its children too, and this hierarchical deletion creates real challenges for a trash and restore workflow.

This issue had been open for a while with some interesting discussion about the right approach, and I had actually started working on it earlier as part of Tag1's sponsored open source development. I had created an initial MR that enabled trashing terms, but the hierarchy problem was still unsolved, and I wanted to see how AI would handle the complexity.

The module maintainer, Andrei Mateescu (amateescu), had suggested an elegant approach in the issue queue: since cascading deletes happen in the same request, all the deleted terms would have the same timestamp, so we could use that deleted timestamp to restore child terms along with their parent. It sounded promising, and I wanted to test whether it would actually work. So I started down the path, expecting that if I could lean on the shared deleted timestamp, I might avoid storing extra hierarchy data myself.

First Steps: Planning with Cline

I started with the Cline extension for VS Code in a “Plan” mode (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Cline Plan mode

Just for fun, I opened with a prompt asking to help me formulate a plan by going through the issue and studying the Trash module code. It could not access the issue directly, which is actually good from a security perspective, but Claude scanned my project and was able to find the Trash module in it, scanned through the code, and presented a decent understanding of how trashing works. I then explained the hierarchical deletion problem in detail, and the AI checked again and reached the same conclusion I had. When I shared Andreii’s suggestion about using the delete timestamp for restore, the AI presented a three-phase plan covering implementation, basic tests, and optional UX improvements.

At first glance it looked reasonable, but I spotted a major flaw immediately. The AI assumed that deleting a term would trash the parent and hard-delete the children, which is simply wrong. Once trash support is enabled, all terms being deleted move to trash including the children, and every bit of logic that followed was built on this broken assumption. This is exactly the kind of thing that makes working with AI both frustrating and fascinating. There were other misunderstandings (hallucinations) too. So, I decided to start fresh.

After a few trials, I used the following detailed prompt in a new session:

Assume a role of an expert Drupal developer developing a custom feature for the contributed Trash module on a Drupal site. We want the module to support "trashing" taxonomy terms, which is currently disabled.

Background/Current State:
The Trash module adds a deleted column to entity data tables to enable soft-delete/trash functionality.
Taxonomy term trashing is currently disabled via a code line that I can remove to re-enable it.
When a taxonomy term is deleted by default in Drupal, its children (if they have only one parent) are also deleted. This complicates restoration logic.

Goals:
Allow taxonomy terms to be trashed (not hard-deleted), leveraging the module’s infrastructure.
Enable correct restoration of trashed terms, including their child terms.

Technical Challenges:
Taxonomy Overview Page Tree Rendering:\n\nThe taxonomy overview page uses the buildTree function to load hierarchical term data via direct database queries. buildTree currently doesn’t account for the trashed (deleted) column, so trashed terms might break the vocabulary page (e.g., inaccessible, errors). Core updates to taxonomy API are not allowed (must solve without modifying Drupal core).

Restoration Logic for Hierarchies:
The existing trash implementation only restores single entities.
When a parent term is restored from trash, I need to also restore child terms that were trashed at the same time.
All terms trashed together share the same deleted value, which can be used to identify them as part of a single trash operation.

Please provide step-by-step guidance for:
Enabling trash support for taxonomy terms.
Where and how to safely re-enable support (removing the disabling line).
Modifying or extending buildTree (or its usage) without core changes to prevent errors from trashed terms.
Approach for filtering out trashed terms when rendering the tree.

If possible, suggest ways to hook, alter, or override tree loading, limited to contributed/custom code.
Implementing restoration logic for hierarchical terms.
How to batch-restore child terms if their parent is restored from trash.
Using the shared deleted value (timestamp/etc.) to identify child terms involved in the same operation.
Any Drupal hooks or architectural suggestions for this process.

I had to do several trial-and-error iterations to come up with this prompt. With that detailed context, the AI performed much better.

Why This Prompt Worked

This prompt was far more effective than earlier ones because it clearly defined the AI’s role, goals, and constraints from the start.

By identifying the AI as an expert Drupal developer, the prompt aligned its reasoning with real-world Drupal development patterns rather than generic guesses.

Defining clear end goals (enabling trash for taxonomy terms and restoring hierarchical relationships) kept the conversation focused, while listing technical challenges upfront, such as fixing buildTree() behavior without touching core and managing term restoration logic, provided essential guardrails against hallucinations.

Together, these details created a structured context that helped the AI generate more accurate, actionable output instead of speculative or incorrect code suggestions.

It enabled the trash support for taxonomy in configuration by identifying the code. It then tried to fix the listing page queries and failed. I pointed it to use query tags to tag the listing queries and alter them to check if the term is trashed. This was implemented swiftly. The AI implemented a Trash handler for taxonomy terms, which was actually a good decision I had not prompted. But its implementation had a fatal flaw in that it used a class-level array variable for storing the term hierarchy (static caching). This obviously will not work because delete and restore operations happen in separate requests with no persistence between them.

While testing, I found that the trash module automatically trashed the child terms if the parent is deleted. This was expected behavior.

The Discovery That Changed My Understanding

Through old-fashioned debugging and stepping through the deletion flow, I finally understood why the timestamp approach would not work, and it comes down to how Drupal core handles term deletions.

Say you have a hierarchy of terms A and B where A is the parent. When term A is deleted, Term::preSave is called and then the term is deleted. After that, Term::postDelete is called to delete the orphaned children. But here is the problem: When the child term B is about to be deleted, Term::preSave is called again, and that function resets the parent to root before the term gets trashed. This removes any trace of the previous hierarchy entirely.

So even though both terms end up with the same deleted timestamp, we have lost the parent-child relationship by the time they are in the trash. We will need to store the hierarchy data somewhere else, probably with the term itself as others had suggested in the issue. I posted this finding back to the issue queue because it changes the direction of the solution. After that, the maintainer suggested that we pause and reconsider the overall direction of the fix before writing more implementation code. I didn’t want to just stop working at that point, so I decided to focus on something that would still add value: a solid set of tests around the behavior we had uncovered.

I reached this conclusion through traditional debugging, but AI became useful once the solution path was unclear, because it could help me quickly generate and refine tests instead of spending my time on boilerplate.

Starting Fresh and Finding My Rhythm

With the understanding that solving hierarchical restore is tricky and needs more intervention from the module’s maintainer, and that the direction of the fix was on hold, I decided to change how I contributed. Instead of trying to force a solution, I asked AI to help enumerate test scenarios and create tests for trashing, restoring, and purging terms, and it came up with a decent list of scenarios (it applied trashing, restoring, and purging):

Single term
Hierarchies with one parent
Hierarchies with multiple parents

I specifically requested creating atomic tests where one test does one thing. In previous iterations I had noticed it crammed multiple assertions into single tests, but this time it created a comprehensive test class covering all scenarios properly. AI generated the initial test code and structure, and my job was to review, adjust, and guide it toward clean, atomic tests that matched how we actually use the Trash module.

This felt like a real breakthrough in how to work with these tools, namely: you must provide as much context, detail, and guidance as possible in order to get good results.

It tried to run these tests, failed a few times, and I had to step in to explain that the project uses DDEV and tests need to run inside the container. Even then it took three or four more attempts to get the tests running, which tested my patience a bit. As expected, all tests except the hierarchical restore passed.

None of this moved the core solution forward directly, but it still added real value. By using AI to design scenarios and generate most of the test code, I could keep making progress without sinking a lot of time into repetitive work. Those tests now act as a reusable safety net for future changes, so when the direction is finally decided, we will already have a solid foundation to build and iterate on.

Without AI, I probably would have stopped at one or two manual checks or a much smaller test suite, simply because of the time investment. With AI handling the boring parts of writing and reshaping tests, I could afford to cover more scenarios and refine them, even though the underlying solution is still on hold.

Internal Work Showed Me the Real Potential

The Trash module work showed me how AI can help with testing around complex problems, but internal projects are where it really clicked for me. For internal projects, the AI proved more immediately useful, and I got genuinely excited about the possibilities here. For example, on a separate internal project, I needed to create a text filter plugin for rich text formats in Drupal that checks for special unordered lists and replaces them with a Storybook component.

I crafted my prompt carefully based on previous attempts where the AI went wild and tried to implement everything from scratch including the filter plugin, the component, and all the theme functions. In a new session I prompted explicitly that I did not need a new theme function, that it should just use twig include from Storybook, and that it needed to handle nested lists properly since they are multi-level.

It generated a decent filter plugin on the first try, and while there were mistakes of course, I guided it toward modern PHP patterns like attributes and constructor property promotion and PHPStan compliance. A couple of project-specific issues needed manual fixes, but the core implementation was solid.

The tests went really well too. I started with a Kernel test, then tried a Functional test, and eventually settled on Unit tests on the tech lead's suggestion. The Unit test was precise and to the point, and I think this is where AI really shines because the context is clear and limited in unit testing scenarios.

CSS Help Was a Pleasant Surprise

As someone who is mostly a backend developer, this is where I found the use of AI to be genuinely delightful. It quickly understood the project's styling approach, detected that we were using Tailwind, and suggested fixes with basic prompts. No deep context needed, just quick wins that saved me from the usual frustration of wrestling with frontend styling.

Together, these internal projects reinforced the same pattern I saw with the Trash module: AI is most helpful when I give it a narrow, well-defined problem and let it handle the repetitive parts while I focus on the decisions.

The Lessons That Actually Matter

The biggest realization I had is that you need to treat AI as a junior developer who needs clear guidance and supervision. It never replaced my debugging or architectural judgment, but it did make it cheaper and faster to handle the repetitive parts of the work. Providing context aggressively makes an enormous difference, and the more specific you are about the codebase structure the better the results turn out. In my case that meant offloading a lot of test boilerplate, trying out different test structures (Kernel, Functional, Unit), and iterating on scenario coverage without feeling like I was wasting time. Limiting where the AI can scan also helps manage the context window size, which matters more than I initially realized.

I found that spending time in Plan mode before rushing to Act pays off tremendously because it lets the AI think through the problem first. Keeping scope small is also critical since large ambitious prompts lead to hallucinations and broken assumptions while small well-directed tasks actually get completed correctly.

When the AI starts hallucinating, restoring to a previous checkpoint or starting fresh with the same context works much better than trying to correct a conversation that has gone off the rails. I learned this the hard way through several frustrating sessions.

Managing the “context window” for the AI is important. Sometimes starting a fresh conversation makes more sense than continuing with the existing one. I made sure that I exported the context in each conversation, adjusted it and carried that to the next session.

Used this way, AI feels like a junior developer who is great at cranking out tests and repetitive scaffolding, while I stay focused on debugging, design decisions, and understanding the problem. The thing that excites me most is that using AI we can finally do test-driven development without it feeling like a burden. That alone makes learning to work with these tools worthwhile, and I am looking forward to exploring this further on future projects.

This post is part of Tag1’s AI Applied content series, where we share how we're using AI inside our own work before bringing it to clients. Our goal is to be transparent about what works, what doesn’t, and what we are still figuring out, so that together, we can build a more practical, responsible path for AI adoption.

Bring practical, proven AI adoption strategies to your organization, let's start a conversation! We'd love to hear from you.

Image by Cline

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Specbee: How to decide between a Drupal agency and a general web agency

The real difference between a Drupal agency and a general web agency isn’t what you think. Are you asking the right questions? Read this article to find out what you’re missing. read more

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Joachim's blog: Release more code: the technical stuff

Release more code: the technical stuff

At LocalGov Drupal Dev Days in London earlier this month, the topic came up of releasing custom project code as contrib modules.

There were many people in the room who said they had custom code in their site codebase that they planned to release as contrib modules, but needed to find the time to get it ready. I heard people mention the work that they had left to do for this, and it sounded very familiar: generalise the functionality, remove client-specific code, remove client-specific strings.

This reminded me of a session I did at Drupal Camp London way back in 2014, on this very topic: releasing more code from your codebase, to lower the amount of custom code and share more with the community. Since then, I've gone on to release many more contrib modules, and the introduction of more powerful APIs and systems with Drupal 8 has added to what's possible, so I thought I'd revisit my thoughts on different ways to approach this. My presentation was on the 'why' as well as the 'how', but I'll assume you know that part already.

The first thing to say is that as with tests or accessibility, it's much easier to write contributable code from the start rather than rework it later.

Fundamentally though, whether to plan from the start or retrofit, the baic principle is that you want your code to be split into two layers: the contrib, and the custom. Think of it as a contrib cake with custom icing on top.

The tricky part is where to put the dividing line. It's not always clear how much of your functionality is generic and applicable to other use cases and other clients.

I always err on the side of putting too much in contrib, and offsetting the possibility that the contrib code is too specific with customisability.

But how do we actually slice it up?

Plugins

Plugins are one of the most powerful ways of switching behaviour in Drupal. Defining your own plugin type allows you to design exactly which parts of the code are handed over to the plugin, and in as many places as you want, by adding more methods to your plugin's interface.

If the methods in the plugin start to look unrelated, you can always add a second plugin type. And if the amount of boilerplate needed for a plugin type is offputting, Module Builder generates it all for you.

It's worth also considering the lesser-known sibling of attribute plugins, the YAML plugin. If you only want to change strings or parameters, then you can put all that into YAML instead of a whole class. (And YAML plugins do allow custom classes for oddball cases.)

With a plugin system, you need a way to set the plugin to use. There are two ways you could do this: if it's a single plugin that you select, use a plain config setting. If it's a pattern that you might want several of, use a config entity that holds the reference to the plugin. This requires a fair bit of boilerplate code, but there are examples in contrib that you can crib from, such as Flag and Action Link.

And remember that there are other systems that allow ways to select a plugin: field formatters and widgets, Views handlers for fields and filters and so on, paragraph behaviours, and more.

Twig templates

Twig templates are a great way to customise output from your module. You can change strings, rearrange elements, and add CSS classes for styling.

You'll need to define the theme hook using hook_theme(), and define the variables the template uses. Then, provide a neutral version of the template in the contrib module's /templates folder, and override it in your site's theme.

Form alteration

For forms, use hook_form_alter() to change the labels of elements and their order.

Or you can even add extra form elements, and handle their values in a custom submit handler.

If your alterations start to get too complex, consider using a plugin that you pass the form to for customization.

Overridden config

Simplest of all is to use config to override values, whether they are strings or parameters.

Define the config schema for the settings, add a default config to the module's config/install, and then override it in your project's config.

Other APIs

It's worth looking at existing APIs that allow a custom module or theme to alter functionality. For example, in core, field widgets can be altered with hook_field_widget_single_element_form_alter() and field formatters with hook_field_formatter_third_party_settings_form(). And all sorts of unspeakable things can be done to Views with field, filter, argument, and sort handlers, and display extender plugins.

Shortcuts

If you're short on time and resources to work on splitting your cake up, there are some shortcuts you can take. It's what I call the 'code and run' method of releasing code: the contrib module is incomplete, but released in the hope that the next person who finds it useful will pick it up and move it forward.

Skimp on UI: If they're settings that you don't need to override in your project, you could even make the values constants somewhere. The main thing is to make it easy to find all occurrences of a value, so that a future contributor can replace them with a value from config.
Skimp on features: Leave space for other cases you can envisage, but don't need right now.

My opinion on this is that releasing some code, even if it's half-baked, is better than not releasing code at all, as long as you clearly explain on the project page that the module has things missing or incomplete, and leave a trail in the code in the form of comments and placeholders.

Do you need help with preparing custom code to be released as a contrib project? It's a great way to get more presence for you or your organisation. I'm available for hire - contact me!

joachim Tue, 24/02/2026 - 09:52

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MidCamp - Midwest Drupal Camp: MidCamp Chicago 2026 call for sessions open through Feb 26

We're excited to celebrate you -- our future speakers! If you've got an idea for a session, now's the time to get involved in MidCamp 2026, happening May 12-14 in Chicago.

Call for Speakers

Since 2014, MidCamp has hosted over 300 amazing sessions, and we're ready to add your talk to that legacy. We're seeking presentations for all skill levels, from Drupal beginners to advanced users to end users and business professionals!

For full submission details and guidelines, visit: midcamp.org/events/2026/how-submit-session

Key Dates

Call for Proposals Opened: February 10, 2026
Proposal Deadline: February 26, 2026
Speakers Notified: Week of April 2026
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DDEV Blog: Using WarpBuild to speed up DDEV in CI

For most developers, DDEV solves a common challenge: making sure that each developer has a consistent, stable local environment for building their web application. We had more and more success with DDEV at Lullabot, but another related issue kept coming up: how do we grow and develop our use of continuous integration and automated testing while avoiding the same challenges DDEV solved for us?

A typical CI/CD pipeline is implemented using the tools and systems provided by the CI service itself. For example, at a basic level you can place shell commands inside configuration files to run tests and tools. Running those commands locally in DDEV is possible, but it's a painful copy/paste process. If you're a back-end or DevOps engineer, odds are high you've wasted hours trying to figure out why a test you wrote locally isn't passing in CI – or vice versa!

As a first step, we used Task to improve our velocity. Having a unified task runner that works outside PHP lets us standardize CI tasks more easily. However, this still left a big surface area for differences between local and CI environments. For example, in GitHub, the shivammathur/setup-php action is used to install PHP and extensions, but the action is not identical to DDEV. Underlying system libraries and packages installed with apt-get could also be different, causing unexpected issues. Finally, there was often a lag in detecting when local test environments broke because those changes weren't tested in CI.

This brought us to using DDEV for CI. It's a great solution! Running all of our builds and tasks in CI solved nearly every "it works on my machine" problem we had. However, it introduced a new challenge: CI startup performance.

Unlike using a CI-provider's built-in tooling, DDEV is not typically cached or included in CI runners. Just running the setup-ddev action can take up to a minute on a bad day. That doesn't include any additional packages or Dockerfile customizations a project may include. At Lullabot, we use ddev-playwright to run end-to-end tests. Browser engines and their dependencies are heavy! System dependencies can be north of 1GB of compressed packages (that then have to be installed), and browsers themselves can be several hundred MB. This was adding several minutes of setup time just to run a single test.

Luckily, based on our experience building Tugboat, we knew that the technology to improve startup performance existed. When WarpBuild was announced with Snapshot support in 2024, we immediately started testing it out. We theorized that the performance improvement of snapshots would result in significant startup time improvement. Here's how we set it up!

We had three parallel jobs that all required DDEV:

Playwright Functional Tests - these were using 8 "large" runners from GitHub to complete our test suite fast. Before WarpBuild, each runner took between 15 and 20 minutes to run tests.
Static tests running PHPStan, PHPUnit, and so on.
ZAP for security scanning.

Note that our Playwright tests themselves run in parallel on a single worker as well, using lullabot/playwright-drupal. This allows us to optimize the additional startup time for installing Drupal itself (which can't be cached in a snapshot) across many tests.

After linking WarpBuild to our GitHub repository, we had to update our workflows. For the full combined example, see the repository at ddev/ddev-ci-warpbuild-example.

Here is an example representing the changes we made to our workflow after enabling Snapshots in the WarpBuild UI. At a high level, here's the flow we want to create with our GitHub jobs:

flowchart TD
    A[determine-snapshot: <br>Hash key files] --> B[Request WarpBuild runner<br>with snapshot key]
    B --> C{Snapshot exists?}
    C -->|"Yes (fast path)"| D[Restore snapshot<br>DDEV pre-installed]
    C -->|"No (first run)"| E[Install DDEV, browsers,<br>and dependencies]
    D --> F[Start DDEV & run tests]
    E --> F
    F --> G{First run?}
    G -->|Yes| H[Clean up & save snapshot]
    G -->|No| I[Done!]
    H --> I

Start with a basic workflow to trigger on pull requests and on merges to main.

name: "WarpBuild Snapshot Example"

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:

Before running our real work, we need to know what snapshot we could restore from. We start by creating a hash of key files that affect what gets saved in the snapshot. For example, if Playwright (and its browser and system dependencies) are upgraded by Renovate, we want a new snapshot to be created. Extend or modify these files to match your own project setup.

jobs:
  determine-snapshot:
    # This could be a WarpBuild runner too!
    runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
    outputs:
      snapshot: ${{ steps.snapshot-base.outputs.snapshot }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v6

      - name: Determine Snapshot Base
        id: snapshot-base
        run: |
          set -x
          hash=$(cat .github/workflows/test.yml test/playwright/.yarnrc.yml test/playwright/yarn.lock | md5sum | cut -c 1-8)
          echo "snapshot=$hash" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
        shell: bash

WarpBuild needs some additional configuration to tell GitHub Actions to use it as a runner. This could be as simple as runs-on: 'warp-<runner-type>' if you aren't using snapshots. WarpBuild has many runner options available, including ARM and spot instances to reduce costs further.

The runs-on statement:

Skips snapshots via commit messages.
Uses a "16x" sized runner so we can run tests in parallel.
Creates a snapshot key with the project name, the ddev version, a manual version number, and the short hash of the files from above.

We also switch to the WarpBuild cache (so it's local to the runner) and check out the project. Update the cache paths as appropriate for your project.

jobs:
  # other jobs...
  build-and-test:
    needs: [determine-snapshot]
    runs-on:
      "${{ contains(github.event.head_commit.message, '[warp-no-snapshot]') &&
      'warp-ubuntu-2404-x64-16x' ||
      format('warp-ubuntu-2404-x64-16x;snapshot.key=my-project-ddev-1.25.1-v1-{0}', needs.determine-snapshot.outputs.snapshot) }}"

    steps:
      - uses: WarpBuilds/cache@v1
        with:
          path: |
            ${{ github.workspace }}/.ddev/.drainpipe-composer-cache
            ${{ github.workspace }}/vendor
            ${{ github.workspace }}/web/core
            ${{ github.workspace }}/web/modules/contrib
          key: ${{ runner.os }}-composer-full-${{ hashFiles('**/composer.lock') }}

      - uses: actions/checkout@v6

We need to add logic to either start from scratch and install everything or restore from a snapshot. Since DDEV isn't installed by default in runners, we can use its presence to easily determine if we're running from inside a snapshot or not. We save these values for later use.

jobs:
  # other jobs...
  build-and-test:
    steps:
      # ... previous steps ...
      - name: Find ddev
        id: find-ddev
        run: |
          DDEV_PATH=$(which ddev) || DDEV_PATH=''
          echo "ddev-path=$DDEV_PATH" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
          if [ -n "$DDEV_PATH" ]; then
            echo "ddev found at: $DDEV_PATH (restored from snapshot)"
          else
            echo "ddev not found (fresh runner, will install)"
          fi

If ddev exists, we can skip installing it:

jobs:
  # other jobs...
  build-and-test:
    steps:
      # ... previous steps ...
      - name: Install ddev
        uses: ddev/github-action-setup-ddev@v1
        if: ${{ steps.find-ddev.outputs.ddev-path != '/usr/bin/ddev' }}
        with:
          autostart: false
          # When updating this version, also update the snapshot key above
          version: 1.25.1

At this point, we've got DDEV ready to go, so we can start it and run tests or anything else.

jobs:
  # other jobs...
  build-and-test:
    steps:
      # ... previous steps ...
      - name: Start ddev
        run: |
          # Playwright users may want to run `ddev install-playwright` here.
          ddev start
          ddev describe

      - name: Run tests
        run: |
          ddev exec echo "Running tests..."
          # Replace this with one or more test commands for your project.
          ddev task test:playwright

Now, tests have passed and we can create a snapshot if needed. If tests fail, we never create a snapshot so that we don't accidentally commit a broken environment.

We shut down DDEV since we're going to clean up generated files. This keeps our snapshot a bit smaller and gives us an opportunity to clean up any credentials that might be used as a part of the job. While we don't typically need a Pantheon token for tests, we do need it for some other jobs we run with DDEV.

jobs:
  # other jobs...
  build-and-test:
    steps:
      # ... previous steps ...
      - name: Clean up for snapshot
        if: ${{ steps.find-ddev.outputs.ddev-path != '/usr/bin/ddev' }}
        run: |
          # Stop ddev to ensure clean state
          ddev poweroff
          # Remove any cached credentials or tokens
          rm -f ~/.terminus/cache/session
          # Clean git state and temporary files
          git clean -ffdx

Now we can actually save the snapshot. We skip this if we can since it takes a bit of time to save and upload. There's no point in rewriting our snapshot if it hasn't changed! The wait-timeout-minutes is set very high, but in practice this step only takes a minute or two. We just don't want this step to fail if Amazon is slow.

jobs:
  # other jobs...
  build-and-test:
    steps:
      # ... previous steps ...
      - name: Save WarpBuild snapshot
        uses: WarpBuilds/snapshot-save@v1
        if: ${{ steps.find-ddev.outputs.ddev-path != '/usr/bin/ddev' }}
        # Using a matrix build? Avoid thrashing snapshots by only saving from one shard.
        # if: ${{ matrix.shard == 1 && steps.find-ddev.outputs.ddev-path != '/usr/bin/ddev'}}
        with:
          # Must match the snapshot.key in runs-on above
          alias: "my-project-ddev-1.25.1-v1-${{ needs.determine-snapshot.outputs.snapshot }}"
          fail-on-error: true
          wait-timeout-minutes: 30

To test, once you have jobs passing, you can rerun them from the GitHub Actions UI. If everything is working, you will see all steps related to installing DDEV skipped.

Note: We don't pin actions to hashes in these examples for easy copypaste, but for security we always use Renovate to pin hashes for us. We would also like to use Renovate Custom Managers to automatically offer DDEV upgrades and keep the version number in sync across all files and locations.

The Results?

The time to start Playwright tests was reduced from 4 to 5 minutes to 1 to 2 minutes. Now, the longest time in the workflow is the ddev start command.
- This project uses eight parallel runners, so we're saving about 24 minutes of CI costs per commit.
We thought costs would go down, but we ended up writing many more tests! CI costs with WarpBuild stayed roughly similar to our previous GitHub costs but with greater test coverage and faster reports.
While ZAP tests needed browsers like Playwright, static tests didn't. However, restoring snapshots was fast enough creating separate snapshots without browsers wasn't worth the complexity.
Snapshot storage costs are inexpensive enough to not matter compared to the CI runner cost.

While this seems like a lot of work, it was only about half a day to set up and test – and that was when WarpBuild was in beta, had minimal documentation and some rough edges. We haven't really had to touch this code since. Setting up new projects is an hour, at most.

Do you have other optimizations for DDEV in CI to share? Post in the comments, we'd love to hear them!

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DrupalCon News & Updates: DrupalCon Chicago 2026: Must‑See Sessions for Seasoned Developers

Hey experienced developers! You know how to tame Drush, charm Composer, debug like a detective, juggle configs, and wrestle with tricky modules. But there’s an event that will max out your RAM with Drupal hacks, insights, and wisdom.

Chicago may be famous for deep-dish pizza, but this spring it’s serving up something even more satisfying: deep dives into Drupal. DrupalCon Chicago 2026 is the place for seasoned developers to sharpen their skills, swap stories, and maybe laugh at a few module mishaps along the way.

It’s a code playground with a side of professional growth — sessions designed to challenge, inspire, and connect. Ready to level up your craft and enjoy a few geeky chuckles? The program is packed with standout sessions, but here are a few you absolutely won’t want to miss.

Top DrupalCon Chicago 2026 Sessions for Experienced Developers

“The state of JavaScript Code Components in Drupal Canvas” — by Bálint Kléri

Drupal Canvas, the new-generation page builder, offers multiple ways to create pages for different audiences. Non-tech users will enjoy intuitive drag-and-drop tools, ready-made components, and even building pages from a prompt to an AI agent. But what’s in it for developers? First of all, it’s Code Components.

JavaScript in Drupal keeps evolving, and Code Components in Drupal Canvas are the latest twist worth watching. First unveiled at DrupalCon Atlanta, they came with a zero‑setup, in-browser editor and instant support for React and Tailwind CSS.

Things have moved fast: data fetching and Next.js-style image optimization are now supported, and experiments with server-side rendering and third-party imports are in progress. And editing isn’t limited to the browser anymore — a new CLI lets you work with Code Components anywhere, opening doors to decoupled frontends and fresh workflows.

Catch Bálint Kléri (balintbrews), the technical lead for JavaScript components in Drupal, in his insightful session, where he will walk through what’s stable, what’s experimental, and what’s next. You’ll discover specific approaches and techniques for working with Code Components.

“AI Agents for Site Builders” — by Marcus Johansson

AI-driven automation is changing the ways organizations handle content personalization, workflows, customer support, and data insights. One of the most exciting tools to emerge from the Drupal AI initiative is AI agents — autonomous systems that carry out tasks, make decisions, and pursue goals on behalf of users.

You can learn more about Drupal’s new AI Agents framework from Marcus Johansson (marcus_johansson). On his drupal.org page, Marcus describes himself simply: “I tinker with AI.” But his “tinkering” is transforming Drupal from the ground up: Marcus leads the Drupal AI initiative in Drupal, shaping its architecture, driving its development roadmap, and steering the future of AI-powered tools in Drupal.

In this session, Marcus will show you how Drupal’s Agents framework lets you create business-specific agents without writing a single line of code. Instead of slogging through implementation details, you’ll see how prompt writing and communication skills can drive the interaction, while Drupal quietly handles the complexity behind the curtain.

Join Marcus as he unpacks what agents are, how the framework was built, and how it connects with the MCP (Model Context Protocol). For experienced developers, this session is a chance to explore a tool that cuts through the noise and unlocks fresh possibilities.

“Advanced Site Building with Drupal Canvas” — by Ted Bowman

Drupal Canvas is gaining serious momentum, and it deserves a closer look from more than one angle. Alongside the earlier-mentioned session on Code Components, this one is a hands-on exploration of how Canvas works hand in hand with some of Drupal’s most powerful tools.

Ted Bowman (tedbow), a long-time Drupal contributor, will show how Drupal Canvas can be combined with core features like Views and popular contributed modules to build advanced setups — all without writing a single line of code.

You’ll see an exciting demo packed with practical examples: creating dynamic landing pages, formatting structured content with Canvas templates, linking field data to SDC (Single-Directory Components) and Code Component properties, building Views inside Canvas templates, and using template slots to give editors more control.

As Canvas continues to evolve, Ted will also spotlight the latest features and contributed modules that extend its capabilities even further.

“Next Generation ECA - Vision and Progress update” — by Jürgen Haas

Drupal offers many ways of workflow automation. But having tasks quietly carried out in the background — triggered by events, checked against conditions, and completed through actions — is a special kind of magic.

Experienced developers may remember the Rules module that pioneered this idea. Today, its modern successor, the Event–Condition–Action (ECA) module, takes the concept further, reimagined for Drupal’s current ecosystem. With a no-code/low-code approach and graphical modeling tools like BPMN, ECA makes building workflows more intuitive and far less intimidating.

Despite the amazing graphical interface with diagrams for ECA workflows, ECA needed to become even more approachable, especially for people without prior Drupal experience. So after solid real-world use and plenty of feedback from the community, ECA is entering its next phase. In his session, ECA’s creator, Jürgen Haas (jurgenhaas), the creator of ECA, will share how things are going with the revamp.

By lowering the barrier for site builders and project managers, the evolving ECA creates more room for developers to extend, integrate, and scale automation. The refreshed interface makes workflows easier to work with, while the underlying architecture opens fresh opportunities for custom plugins, enterprise integrations, and performance tuning.

“A Taste of the Future: Site Templates and Recipes in Drupal” — by Jim Birch

Drupal has always had a knack for ambitious site building, but the Recipes Initiative is cooking up something new. Instead of distributions that lacked flexibility, we now have lightweight, composable recipes and site templates that make functionality easier to share, remix, and extend.

For experienced developers, it’s about speeding up the boring parts so you can focus on the interesting ones. Default content APIs and config actions are steadily maturing, and the community is already serving up recipes that cut down setup time while keeping flexibility intact.

Step into this session led by Jim Birch (thejimbirch), a renowned Drupal core committer and initiative coordinator. He will walk you through the progress so far, highlight examples from the community, and demonstrate practical authoring workflows. You’ll leave with a clear sense of how recipes fit into Drupal’s future, how to find and apply them effectively, and how to contribute your own to the growing ecosystem.

“Beyond Iframes: Modern Embedding in Drupal with Media and oEmbed” — by Pedro Cambra

Embedding external content in Drupal has become trickier as platforms tighten security rules and content policies. If iframes keep letting you down, this session offers a cleaner, more future-proof approach.

Join Pedro Cambra (pcambra), an experienced Drupal contributor, as he shares practical guidance on embedding external content with oEmbed. He explores how Drupal uses the oEmbed standard together with core Media tools and contributed modules like oEmbed Providers to embed third-party content safely and reliably. You’ll get a clear look at how oEmbed works behind the scenes, which modules fit best for different use cases, and how CKEditor handles embedded objects.

The session also touches on enhancing embeds with authentication or privacy controls and building your own oEmbed resources for custom content. Practical examples keep things grounded, with plenty of tips you can apply right away. If you’ve ever wrestled with embeds or want a more robust setup that plays nicely with modern platforms, this session is well worth your time.

“Future Proof Theming: Best Practices for Drupal’s New Era” — by Mike Herchel and Andy Blum

Theming in Drupal is entering a new era, and this training is designed to keep even seasoned developers ahead of the curve. It will be led by Mike Herchel (mherchel) and Andy Blum (andy-blum), key contributors driving theming innovations in Drupal. The training session dives into Single Directory Components, Drupal Canvas, and modern CSS/JS techniques that will shape how we build themes going forward.

Through hands‑on exercises, you’ll learn to craft reusable components, streamline workflows with Storybook, and deliver designs that are fast, accessible, and maintainable.

You’ll pick up strategies to dodge common page‑builder pitfalls and keep your themes flexible for whatever comes next. If you’re ready to sharpen your skills and future‑proof your toolkit, this training belongs on your schedule. It must be noted that training sessions require an additional ticket.

Driesnote — by Dries Buytaert

Every DrupalCon has its traditions, and the Driesnote is one of the most anticipated. For developers who spend their days building and maintaining Drupal sites, the Driesnote is a chance to catch a glimpse of what’s emerging in the platform.

Beyond the usual updates, it’s the place to hear the newest features, initiatives, and announcements that set the stage for what’s coming next for Drupal. You’ll discover new tools, architectural changes, and exciting directions for core and contributed projects, all straight from Dries Buytaert. Right in the main auditorium, you’ll catch demos that haven’t been shown anywhere else yet.

This session is Drupal’s roadmap in real time. Experienced developers will walk away with inspiration for their own projects, and an insider’s view of upcoming improvements that could change how we work with the platform.

Final thoughts

Wrapping up the developer sessions at DrupalCon Chicago, the vibe is clear: Drupal keeps giving us new tools, and it’s up to us to explore them, stress-test them, and help shape what comes next. Canvas, ECA V2, Recipes, Site Templates, and other cool innovations are all evolving fast, and the fun part is digging into the details to see how they really work.

For experienced developers, the focus shifts away from shiny demos to spotting patterns, catching edge cases, and laughing when the “easy” stuff turns into a rabbit hole. These sessions are a reminder that Drupal’s future is being built in real time — and that we still get to shape it through commits, patches, and the occasional late-night debugging marathon.

Authored By: Nadiia Nykolaichuk, DrupalCon Chicago 2026 Marketing & Outreach Committee Member

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Talking Drupal: Talking Drupal #541 - Mautic

Today we are talking about Mautic, marketing automation, and its history with Drupal with guest Ruth Cheesley. We'll also cover Mautic ECA as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/541

Topics

What Is Mautic?
Self-Hosting and Data Ownership
Who Uses Mautic + Personalization
Mautic's History with Drupal
How Drupal Integrate Mautic
Orchestration in Mautic
Privacy & Compliance: GDPR Tools, Consent, and Do-Not-Contact Controls
Hosting Options
Advanced Segmentation
Points-Based Lead Scoring
Validating Segments
Using Points to Boost
Common Mautic Adoption Pitfalls
Getting Support
The Future with AI
AI and Open Source Maintenance
Mautic Sustainability & Fundraising
How to Contribute

Resources

Guests

Ruth Cheesley - ruthcheesley.co.uk RCheesley

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Catherine Tsiboukas - mindcraftgroup.com bletch

MOTW Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

Brief description:
- Have you ever wanted to integrate Mautic marketing automation into your Drupal website, using ECA? There's a module for that.
Module name/project name:
- Mautic ECA
Brief history
- How old: created in Jun 2025 by Abhisek Mazumdar (abhisekmazumdar) of Dropsolid
- Versions available: 1.0.6 which works with Drupal 10 and 11
Maintainership
- Actively maintained
- Documentation - detailed README
- Number of open issues: 1 open issues, which is not a bug
Usage stats:
- 3 sites
Module features and usage
- With the module installed, your ECA models can respond to Mautic webhooks, and can also make use of new actions to give you CRUD capabilities (Create, Read, Update, or Delete) for contacts and segments within ECA
- Mautic ECA declares the Mautic API module as a dependency, and you need to use it to set up an API connection, and to define any webhooks you want to use in your models
- It's worth noting that the maintainers of Mautic ECA also seem to be involved with a number of other modules in the Mautic API ecosystem, including Mautic Personalization, as well as Mautic Content Provider, which can expose Drupal content for use in Mautic, for example to include in emails

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Mike Herchel's Blog: Fun, dancing, and contribution at Florida DrupalCamp (photos included)!

Fun, dancing, and contribution at Florida DrupalCamp (photos included)! mherchel Mon, 02/23/2026 - 13:32 read more

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The Drop Times: Architecture Before Alchemy

Every technology cycle has its buzzwords. This one has AI stamped on every roadmap, budget request, and vendor pitch deck. As Nitish Chopra argues, the rush to “integrate AI” into content management systems feels less like strategy and more like panic. Organizations are bolting large language models onto legacy stacks without confronting a harder truth: most digital architectures were never designed to support structured, machine-readable intelligence.

The pattern is becoming predictable across the CMS landscape. Some teams chase quick wins through plugin overload and surface-level integrations. Others pay enterprise premiums for repackaged APIs marketed as innovation. A third group disappears into technical rabbit holes, overengineering AI experiments that never survive contact with production realities. In each case, the failure is architectural. AI is treated as a feature to be installed, not a capability that depends on disciplined data modeling, governance, and system design.

This is where the Drupal ecosystem enters the conversation. For years, Drupal’s insistence on entities, fields, taxonomies, and structured content was criticized as overly complex. Yet those very foundations align with what AI systems require: clean schemas, reusable content objects, and predictable relationships. What once felt rigid now looks intentional. What was labeled pedantic now resembles preparation.

For Drupal builders, agencies, and enterprise stakeholders, the question is not whether to integrate AI, but how to do so without abandoning architectural discipline. AI success in Drupal will not come from chasing wrappers around APIs or cosmetic chatbot add-ons. It will come from doubling down on structured content architecture, refining data governance, and designing composable systems that can support automation at scale. In that sense, the ecosystem’s competitive advantage is not novelty. It is discipline.

This week’s edition reflects on that tension between momentum and method before turning to the stories shaping the ecosystem.

With that, let's shift the spotlight to the important stories from last week.

INTERVIEW

The Work Behind the Workflow: Stas Zhuk and the Future of DDEV

DISCOVER DRUPAL

DRUPAL COMMUNITY

EVENTS

ORGANIZATION NEWS

We acknowledge that there are more stories to share. However, due to selection constraints, we must pause further exploration for now. To get timely updates, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Bluesky, and Facebook. You can also join us on Drupal Slack at #thedroptimes.

Thank you.

Alka Elizabeth
Sub-editor
The DropTimes

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Jacob Rockowitz: Coding Drupal with AI

Introduction

There is a subtle bait-and-switch here: I am going to talk about my experience coding with AI in Python, but the lessons learned apply to Drupal and the broader challenges developers face when coding with AI.

Over the past few months, AIs have begun to understand and write code for Drupal, and I want to understand how AI can help me with my Drupal projects. I would be the first to say “Vibe Coding” sounds like something invented in a hipster cafe, but it is here to stay, just like the Frappuccino.

As a Drupal Developer who has written a lot of PHP code over the years, I welcome the opportunity to write less and think more. Call me old-fashioned, but I am a self-taught developer who learned by reading books, even though AI moves so fast that books on the topic are out of date within a year. I decided to look for a book to help with this journey.

A search for “Coding Drupal with AI” yields very few results, yet it is notable that a post titled “Claude Code meets Drupal” by Dries Buytaert, the creator of Drupal, appears on the first screen of results. Sometimes, when learning something new or facing a new challenge, I like to work around the challenge.

For example, when I first started learning Drupal 8 as an experienced Drupal 6/7 developer, I was stumped by Symfony and the OOP patterns being introduced into Drupal, so I spent a few weeks building a Symfony application and then dove deep into Drupal 8. So I decided to approach AI coding in Python because it is a popular programming language that I was curious to learn. I chose to read Coding with AI: Examples in Python by Jeremy Morgan because it focuses first on AI and secondarily on using Python.

My...Read More

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UI Suite Initiative website: Live show - Display Builder demo on Talk On My Machine (TOMM)

Overall summarySparkFabrik continues to be a welcoming hub for the Drupal community, and this session was a great example of that. As part of their ongoing "Talk on My Machine" series, SparkFabrik hosted Michaël Fanini to present Display Builder — the latest addition to the UI Suite ecosystem, designed to simplify and unify the display-building experience in Drupal. read more

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The Drop Times: The Work Behind the Workflow: Stas Zhuk and the Future of DDEV

As a maintainer of DDEV, Stas Zhuk works behind the scenes to ensure thousands of developers rarely have to think about their local environments. In this interview with The DropTimes, he reflects on reliability, open source responsibility, AI-assisted development, and what it takes to keep critical infrastructure stable even during power blackouts in Ukraine. read more

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Pivale: Using Agentic AI Without Vibe Coding

Practical guide to using Agentic AI in Drupal development without vibe coding. Learn where AI helps, where it fails, and how to produce reliable code. read more

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ComputerMinds.co.uk: Drupal 11 Upgrade Gotchas - Slick Carousel

A bit of background

Even as a seasoned Drupal developer, when upgrading a Drupal 10.x site to Drupal 11.x you can still encounter a number of weird issues with some older legacy code on the site, which had previously (unbeknownst to you) relied on functionality that has now changed in some way, shape or form due to the upgrade to Drupal Core and its dependencies.

I've just gone through a long morning of debug hell with some JavaScript functionality on a client's site that has previously not had any issues throughout the last few Drupal upgrades. For context, this site was originally built as a Drupal 7 site (all those years ago!), has been entirely rebuilt and migrated to Drupal 9, upgraded to Drupal 10 and now is finally being upgraded to Drupal 11(.3).

The site has a fair number of different JavaScript powered Carousels on the site, and at the time of building the site originally, the 'in vogue' solution for responsive carousels was the excellent Slick Carousel (Github link). I won't go into too many details about this package here, but it's worked well and hasn't caused any issues over the years with previous Drupal upgrades.

The package is dependent on jQuery, and with the move to jQuery 4.x in Drupal core (an optional dependency!), this is where the problems started. Now, it's unfair to expect a package with the last official release of nearly 9 years ago to magically work with a newer version of jQuery which didn't exist at the time (the latest version in 2017 was 3.2 but the plugin was designed around jQuery 2.x), but with the aim of trying to keep within budget for this Drupal 11 upgrade, it was decided to not rewrite the entire functionality of the carousels on this site.

This would have involved having to implement an entirely new (ideally non jQuery dependent!) plugin such as Swiper or Glider and re-writing the DOM structure in all the Twig templates that contain the markup for each of the carousels, tweaking the styling for each carousel, and then re-writing the various JavaScript code to work with the new chosen plugin. If the site only had a simple type of carousel in a singular place, then swapping out would have been a suitable option but the carousels on the site in question are quite complex in some instances, so I decided to go with trying to make Slick work.

The initial problem

Even though there hasn't been an official release of the package since October 2017, there has been work in the master branch in the last few years to make the plugin work with more modern jQuery versions. The previous upgrade to use jQuery 3.x in Drupal core (versions 8.5 and above) didn't actually cause any noticeable issues with the Slick plugin (at least in our use case), but the version 4 upgrade as part of Drupal 11 finally caused us issues.

jQuery 4 has finally removed a number of deprecated APIs, one of which is jQuery.type, which is what Slick used internally in multiple parts of it's code.. without the function available anymore, of course, the JavaScript blows up! Luckily, there have been a number of commits to the master branch of Slick in the last few years and one in 2022, which fixed these deprecated calls, allowing it to work properly with more modern jQuery versions. The commit in question was designed to fix jQuery 3.x issues, but by swapping out deprecated API calls in time, it's enabled it to work (mostly) with 4.x as well.

So to get the master version in place instead of the latest official release (which is very old), I made the following change to our package.json (the project in question uses npm) in the list of dependencies, changing:

"slick-carousel": "^1.8.1",

to (the latest commit hash in the master branch):

"slick-carousel": "github:kenwheeler/slick#279674a815df01d100c02a09bdf3272c52c9fd55",

and then re-installed the projects JS dependencies to bring the new version in.

(For reference, we have some code that will take the version installed here into the node_modules folder and copy it into our sites custom theme directory in an appropriate folder, we then define this as a custom Drupal library and include only where needed.)

With the latest version in place, the JS error with the previously used deprecated API's was gone, yay! But now we had other issues to worry about.

Further problems

The first thing I noticed, now that the JS error was gone, was that a carousel on the homepage looked to be styled incorrectly compared to the version in production. Closer inspection of the DOM revealed that, for some reason now (after not changing any of the invocation calls to the Slick plugin), the slides were now wrapped in two extra divs, instead of the slides themselves getting the slick-slide class (amongst others).

At this point in time, I just assumed this was just a newer behaviour of the updated code of the Slick plugin.. so I set about just making a few quick style changes to the CSS that we had previously not had to take into account of these extra wrapping divs. Later on, I discovered the real reason for these additional wrapping divs... keep reading to find out what it was.

Broken:

Fixed:

This solved this immediate problem, and then I went hunting for the other carousels on the site, which is where things got very interesting (and time-consuming!)

The next carousel's with an apparent problem were on the site's main product page, where one is used on the left hand side (displayed vertically) and acts as a navigation of thumbnails of the 'main' product image gallery that is displayed next to it. The left hand one appeared to be functioning mostly correctly in itself (with a small style issue), but clicking on it would not progress the main slideshow at all! With no JS errors in the console and nothing obviously wrong, cue the debugging rabbit hole....

Going deeper

I won't go into too much detail here of all the paths I went down whilst debugging this but needless to say it involved swapping out the usually minified version of the Slick plugin for the non minified version, using the excellent Chrome JS debugger and stepping through exactly what was going on when Slick was trying to set this carousel up and why it was behaving like it was.

After a while, I finally realised the issue was present when Slick had started initialising itself - after invoking the plugin in the site's code - but before finishing setup. During it's setup, something was going wrong internally with the reference to the slides, which meant they were not copied into the slick-track div and the previously mentioned (new) wrapping divs were there in the DOM, but with no classes on at all.

The JS debugging revealed that the number of $slides being returned from the following Slick code was actually zero!

_.$slides =
  _.$slider
    .children( _.options.slide + ':not(.slick-cloned)')
    .addClass('slick-slide');

This meant the rest of the code that would then do the copying of the slides into the slick-track div (amongst other setup procedures) was failing. But - how could this possibly be? because running some debug code before initialising Slick and checking the number of slides in the DOM was correct...

The devil is in the detail here, and it turns out that the children() selector here is no longer matching my slide container children. But if we didn't change anything about the code that invokes the carousel, why exactly is it broken?

The key lies in the (optional) slide parameter for Slick (which controls the element query to find the slide). The working vertical carousel (amongst others that were working) wasn't using the slide parameter (as the DOM structure for that carousel has the children directly below the slide container), but the broken carousel was using it (due to a specific reason which I won't get into too far into the exact details of, but it involves other markup in the DOM at that specific place for another purpose on the site, so hence needing to specify the selector).

It turns out that if you omit the slide parameter, internally it'll use > div as the selector for slide , and (obviously) if you specify a selector, it'll use that. Because the previous code we had invoking Slick had specified a custom selector, and now (as mentioned above) there were two extra wrapping divs in play, the Slick selector .children( _.options.slide + ':not(.slick-cloned)') was not matching anymore, as my targets for the slide are now inadvertent grandchildren! and after explicitly defining a selector that wasn't the default (> div), it no longer matched.

The real question?

But why are there now two wrapping <div> elements around each slide where previously there were not?

This is the real question that needs answering, now that we understand why the selector wasn't working during the setup for the slides themselves.

By default, Slick has a default setting for the rows of a slideshow of 1 (unless overridden when invoking the plugin). There is internal code inside of Slick in a buildRows() function (called during initialisation of the carousel) that checks if the number of rows is > 0, and if so, it wraps the inner slides in these two divs!

Slick.prototype.buildRows = function() {

    var _ = this, a, b, c, newSlides, numOfSlides, originalSlides,slidesPerSection;

    newSlides = document.createDocumentFragment();
    originalSlides = _.$slider.children();

    if(_.options.rows > 0) {

        slidesPerSection = _.options.slidesPerRow * _.options.rows;
        numOfSlides = Math.ceil(
            originalSlides.length / slidesPerSection
        );

        for(a = 0; a < numOfSlides; a++){
            var slide = document.createElement('div');
            for(b = 0; b < _.options.rows; b++) {
                var row = document.createElement('div');
                for(c = 0; c < _.options.slidesPerRow; c++) {
                    var target = (a * slidesPerSection + ((b * _.options.slidesPerRow) + c));
                    if (originalSlides.get(target)) {
                        row.appendChild(originalSlides.get(target));
                    }
                }
                slide.appendChild(row);
            }
            newSlides.appendChild(slide);
        }

        _.$slider.empty().append(newSlides);
        _.$slider.children().children().children()
            .css({
                'width':(100 / _.options.slidesPerRow) + '%',
                'display': 'inline-block'
            });

    }

};

A quick check of setting rows to 0 in the carousel settings confirmed this was indeed the overall problem, and immediately, my carousels looked and behaved in the way they did before the update. The rows setting is designed for when putting Slick in a "grid mode" where you specify how many rows you want and also how many slides per row you want with the slidesPerRow parameter.

But why are most of the carousels now getting their slides wrapped in rows due to buildRows(), even if I haven't changed the rows parameter from its previous default of 1?

There is a slight confusion when looking at the documentation for the plugin, as it specifies the default value is 1, but also specifies "Setting this to more than 1 initializes grid mode. Use slidesPerRow to set how many slides should be in each row." But this is clearly not true, as we can see a commit that is present in the previous version we were using (1.8.1) had changed this check from if(_.options.rows > 1) to if(_.options.rows > 0) without having updated any of the documentation to say so.

... or is it? The final "gotcha" was that after comparing the minified JS provided in release 1.8.1 with the non-minified JS... the minified JS of 1.8.1 does indeed check if rows > 1, not rows > 0, but the non-minified code checks if rows > 0 - so they don't match, doh! 🤦

Minified code excerpt:

l.options.rows > 1) {

Non-minified code excerpt:

if(_.options.rows > 0) {

The master branch commit I'm running for the jQuery fixes correctly has the minified code matching the un-minified code, both checking rows > 0 - consistency, yey!

What a facepalm moment, eh?

TLDR - The solution:

After running either the updated Slick module code on a Drupal 11.x site that uses jQuery 4.x (or an un-minified 1.8.1 release on an older Drupal site running jQuery 3.x!) If you don't want your carousels to get the extra wrapping divs, which can cause serious selector issues (when you don't really need the 'grid mode' at all!) just pass rows: 0 as an option when initialising your Slick carousel along with the other options, and it'll behave as it did before.

e.g. (a super basic carousel options initialisation)

$('.some-carousel-selector').slick({
  arrows: true,
  dots: true,
  slidesToShow: 3,
  slidesToScroll: 3,
  rows: 0, // <-- This is the key if you don't need the grid mode!
});

If you've made it this far through the article, well done! Hopefully this article saves you from the same few hours of pain that I experienced!

Final thoughts

In hindsight, the amount of time it took to work out exactly what was going on here and write this article up, I could have probably spent getting most of the carousels working with an entirely different plugin and pretty much most of the way there. What should have been a 15-minute job here turned into hours, but sometimes these unexpected things just happen when doing upgrades, especially when some of the code being used is from a different era (2017 wasn't that long ago, was it?) It's sometimes a tricky choice to know when to leave legacy code in place, try and make it work or when it's time to jump ship to another solution.

If it turned out that there were a multitude of Javascript errors with the Slick plugin under jQuery 4.x and no obvious solutions without knowing the inner workings of the plugin, then I probably would have changed tact and started re-implementing the carousels with another solution. But this wasn't the case here, and the issues turned out to be a lot more nuanced.

On the plus side, another project that also needs a Drupal 11 upgrade also uses Slick carousel from a long time ago, so it really should be a 15-minute job on that one with the knowledge gained here :)

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Très Bien Blog: Dig for gold in Drupal Contrib code

Dig for gold in Drupal Contrib code

Fixing the contrib code search problem.

theodore February 20, 2026 read more

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Dries Buytaert: A better way to follow Drupal development

I've been reading Drupal Core commits for more than 15 years. My workflow hasn't changed much over time. I subscribe to the Drupal Core commits RSS feed, and every morning, over coffee, I scan the new entries. For many of them, I click through to the issue on Drupal.org and read the summary and comments.

That workflow served me well for a long time. But when Drupal Starshot expanded my focus beyond Drupal Core to include Drupal CMS, Drupal Canvas, and the Drupal AI initiative, it became much harder to keep track of everything. All of this work happens in the open, but that doesn't make it easy to follow.

So I built a small tool I'm calling Drupal Digests. It watches the Drupal.org issue queues for Drupal Core, Drupal CMS, Drupal Canvas, and the Drupal AI initiative. When something noteworthy gets committed, it feeds the discussion and diff to AI, which writes me a summary: what changed, why it matters, and whether you need to do anything. You can see an example summary to get a feel for the format.

Each issue summary currently lives as its own Markdown file in a GitHub repository. Since I still like my morning coffee and RSS routine, I also generate RSS feeds that you can subscribe to in your favorite reader.

I built this to scratch my own itch, but realized it could help with something bigger. Staying informed is one of the hardest parts of contributing to a large Open Source project. These digests can help new contributors ramp up faster, help experienced module maintainers catch API changes, and make collaboration across the project easier.

I'm still tuning the prompts. Right now it costs me less than $2 a day in tokens, so I'm committed to running it for at least a year to see whether it's genuinely useful. If it proves valuable, I could imagine giving it a proper home, with search, filtering, and custom feeds.

For now, subscribe to a feed and tell me what you think.

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The Drop Times: Florida DrupalCamp Begins 20 February in Orlando with Canvas and AI in Focus

Florida DrupalCamp 2026 opens 20 February in Orlando with a program centered on Drupal Canvas 1.0 and AI-focused training. In a conversation with The Drop Times, organiser Mike Herchel outlined the Canvas-heavy agenda, hands-on workshops, lightning talks, and the camp’s long-standing contribution culture. read more

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Talking Drupal: TD Cafe #015 - Karen & Stephen - Non-Profit Summit at DrupalCon

Join Karen Horrocks and Stephen Musgrave as they introduce the upcoming non-profit summit at DrupalCon 2026 in Chicago. In this comprehensive fireside chat, they explore how AI can be integrated to serve a nonprofit's mission, plus the dos and don'ts of AI implementation. Hear insights from leading nonprofit professionals, learn about the variety of breakout sessions available, and discover the benefits of Kubernetes for maximizing ROI. Whether you're a developer, content editor, or a strategic planner, this session is crucial for understanding the future of nonprofit operations with cutting-edge technology.

For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/cafe015

Topics

Introduction
Meet Karen & Stephen
Karen's Journey to Nonprofit Work
Deep Dive into Drupal and Nonprofit Websites
Capella's Approach to Continuous Improvement
Nonprofit Summit Overview
Exploring Summit Themes: AI and Resiliency
Digital Sovereignty and Ethical Considerations
Additional Breakout Sessions and Topics
Community Engagement and Registration Details
Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Stephen Musgrave

Stephen (he/him) is a co-founder, partner and Lead Technologist at Capellic, an agency that build and maintains websites for non-profits. Stephen is bullish on keeping things simple – not simplistic. His goal is to maximize the return on investment and minimize the overhead in maintaining the stack for the long term.

Stephen has been working with the web for over 30 years. He was initially drawn to the magic of using code to create web art, added in his love for relational databases, and has spent his career building websites with an unwavering commitment to structured content.

When Stephen isn't at his desk, he's often running to and swimming in Barton Springs Pool, getting a bit too wound-up at Austin FC games, and playing Legos with his little one.

Karen Horrocks

Karen (she/her, karen11 on drupal.org and Drupal Slack) is a Web and Database Developer for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit dedicated to saving and improving human and animal lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research.

Karen began her career as a government contractor at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center developing websites to distribute satellite data to the public. She moved to the nonprofit world when the Physicians Committee, an organization that she supports and follows, posted a job opening for a web developer. She has worked at the Physicians Committee for over 10 years creating websites that provide our members with the information and tools to move to a plant-based diet.

Karen is a co-moderator of NTEN's Nonprofit Drupal Community. She spoke on a panel at the 2019 Nonprofit Summit at DrupalCon Seattle and is helping to organize the 2026 Nonprofit Summit at DrupalCon Chicago.

Resources

Nonprofit Summit Agenda: https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/summit-non-profit-guests-must-pre-register Register for the Summit (within the DrupalCon workflow): https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/registration Funding Open Source for Digital Sovereignty: https://dri.es/funding-open-source-for-digital-sovereignty NTEN's Drupal Community of Practice Zoom call (1p ET on third Thursday of the month except August and December): https://www.nten.org/drupal/notes Nonprofit Drupal Slack Channel: #nonprofits on Drupal Slack

Guests

Karen Horrocks - karen11 www.pcrm.org Stephen Musgrave - capellic capellic.com

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SearXNG - Privacy-First Web Search for Drupal AI Assistants

If you’ve been following the rapid rise of AI‑driven chatbots and ‘assistant‑as‑a‑service’ platforms, you know one of the biggest pain points is trustworthy, privacy‑preserving web search. AI assistants need access to current information to be useful, yet traditional search engines track every query, building detailed user profiles.

Enter SearXNG - an open‑source metasearch engine that aggregates results from dozens of public search back‑ends while never storing personal data. The new Drupal module lets any Drupal‑based AI assistant (ChatGPT, LLM‑powered bots, custom agents) invoke SearXNG directly from the Drupal site, bringing privacy‑first searching in‑process with your content.

What is SearXNG?

SearXNG aggregates results from up to 247 search services without tracking or profiling users. Unlike Google, Bing or other mainstream search engines, SearXNG removes private data from search requests and doesn't forward anything from third-party services.

Think of it as a privacy-preserving intermediary: your query goes to SearXNG, which then queries multiple search engines on your behalf and aggregates the results, all while keeping your identity completely anonymous.

The Drupal SearXNG Module

The Drupal SearXNG module brings this privacy-focused search capability directly into the Drupal ecosystem. It connects Drupal with your preferred SearXNG server (local or remote), includes a demonstration block, and provides an additional submodule that integrates SearXNG with Drupal AI by offering an AI Agent Tool.

This integration is particularly powerful when combined with Drupal's growing AI ecosystem, including the AI module framework, AI Agents and AI Assistants API.

Key Benefits

Privacy by design

The most compelling benefit is complete privacy protection. When your Drupal AI assistant uses SearXNG to search the web:

No user tracking or profiling occurs
Search queries aren't stored or analysed
IP addresses remain private
No targeted advertising based on searches
Compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR

This makes it ideal for organisations in healthcare, government, education and any sector where data privacy is paramount.

Comprehensive search results

By aggregating results from up to 247 search services, SearXNG provides more diverse and comprehensive search results than relying on a single search engine. Your AI assistant gets a broader perspective, potentially finding information that might be missed by individual search engines.

Self-hosted control

Organisations can run their own SearXNG instance, giving them complete control over:

Which search engines to query
Rate limiting and usage patterns
Data residency requirements
Custom configurations and preferences
Complete audit trails

Getting started is remarkably straightforward thanks to SearXNG's official Docker image, which makes launching a local server as simple as running a single command. This means organisations can have their own private search instance running in minutes, without complex server configuration or dependencies.

Seamless AI integration

The module's AI Agent Tool integration means that Drupal AI assistants can seamlessly incorporate web search into their workflows. Whether it's a chatbot helping users navigate your site or an AI assistant helping content creators research topics, web search becomes just another capability in the assistant's toolkit.

Practical Use Cases

Internal knowledge assistants

Imagine a corporate intranet where employees use an AI assistant to find both internal documentation and external resources. The assistant can search your internal Drupal content while using SearXNG to find external information, all while maintaining complete privacy about what employees are researching.

Privacy-conscious educational platforms

Universities and schools increasingly need to protect student privacy. A Drupal-powered learning management system with an AI tutor can use SearXNG to help students research topics without creating profiles of their academic interests and struggles.

Government and public sector portals

Government organisations can leverage AI assistants to help citizens find information and services. Using SearXNG ensures that citizen queries remain private and aren't used for commercial purposes.

The Future of Privacy-First AI

The SearXNG Drupal module represents an important step forward in building AI systems that respect user privacy. As AI assistants become more prevalent in web applications, the ability to access current information without compromising privacy will become increasingly valuable.

Drupal's AI framework supports over 48 AI platforms, providing flexibility in choosing AI providers. By combining this with privacy-respecting search through SearXNG, organisations can build powerful, intelligent applications that align with growing privacy expectations and regulations.

Conclusion

Privacy and powerful AI don't have to be mutually exclusive. The SearXNG Drupal module proves that organisations can build intelligent, helpful AI assistants that respect user privacy. Whether you're building internal tools, public-facing applications, or specialised platforms, this module provides a foundation for privacy-first AI that can search the web without compromising user trust.

As data privacy regulations continue to evolve and users become more aware of digital privacy issues, tools like the SearXNG module will become increasingly essential. By adopting privacy-first approaches now, organisations can build user trust while delivering the intelligent, helpful experiences that modern web applications demand.

Find out more and download on the dedicated SearXNG Drupal project page.

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Drupal AI Initiative: SearXNG - Privacy-First Web Search for Drupal AI Assistants

If you’ve been following the rapid rise of AI‑driven chatbots and ‘assistant‑as‑a‑service’ platforms, you know one of the biggest pain points is trustworthy, privacy‑preserving web search. AI assistants need access to current information to be useful, yet traditional search engines track every query, building detailed user profiles.

Enter SearXNG - an open‑source metasearch engine that aggregates results from dozens of public search back‑ends while never storing personal data. The new Drupal module lets any Drupal‑based AI assistant (ChatGPT, LLM‑powered bots, custom agents) invoke SearXNG directly from the Drupal site, bringing privacy‑first searching in‑process with your content.

What is SearXNG?

SearXNG aggregates results from up to 247 search services without tracking or profiling users. Unlike Google, Bing or other mainstream search engines, SearXNG removes private data from search requests and doesn't forward anything from third-party services.

Think of it as a privacy-preserving intermediary: your query goes to SearXNG, which then queries multiple search engines on your behalf and aggregates the results, all while keeping your identity completely anonymous.

The Drupal SearXNG Module

The Drupal SearXNG module brings this privacy-focused search capability directly into the Drupal ecosystem. It connects Drupal with your preferred SearXNG server (local or remote), includes a demonstration block, and provides an additional submodule that integrates SearXNG with Drupal AI by offering an AI Agent Tool.

This integration is particularly powerful when combined with Drupal's growing AI ecosystem, including the AI module framework, AI Agents and AI Assistants API.

Key Benefits

Privacy by design

The most compelling benefit is complete privacy protection. When your Drupal AI assistant uses SearXNG to search the web:

No user tracking or profiling occurs
Search queries aren't stored or analysed
IP addresses remain private
No targeted advertising based on searches
Compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR

This makes it ideal for organisations in healthcare, government, education and any sector where data privacy is paramount.

Comprehensive search results

By aggregating results from up to 247 search services, SearXNG provides more diverse and comprehensive search results than relying on a single search engine. Your AI assistant gets a broader perspective, potentially finding information that might be missed by individual search engines.

Self-hosted control

Organisations can run their own SearXNG instance, giving them complete control over:

Which search engines to query
Rate limiting and usage patterns
Data residency requirements
Custom configurations and preferences
Complete audit trails

Getting started is remarkably straightforward thanks to SearXNG's official Docker image, which makes launching a local server as simple as running a single command. This means organisations can have their own private search instance running in minutes, without complex server configuration or dependencies.

Seamless AI integration

The module's AI Agent Tool integration means that Drupal AI assistants can seamlessly incorporate web search into their workflows. Whether it's a chatbot helping users navigate your site or an AI assistant helping content creators research topics, web search becomes just another capability in the assistant's toolkit.

Practical Use Cases

Internal knowledge assistants

Imagine a corporate intranet where employees use an AI assistant to find both internal documentation and external resources. The assistant can search your internal Drupal content while using SearXNG to find external information, all while maintaining complete privacy about what employees are researching.

Privacy-conscious educational platforms

Universities and schools increasingly need to protect student privacy. A Drupal-powered learning management system with an AI tutor can use SearXNG to help students research topics without creating profiles of their academic interests and struggles.

Government and public sector portals

Government organisations can leverage AI assistants to help citizens find information and services. Using SearXNG ensures that citizen queries remain private and aren't used for commercial purposes.

The Future of Privacy-First AI

The SearXNG Drupal module represents an important step forward in building AI systems that respect user privacy. As AI assistants become more prevalent in web applications, the ability to access current information without compromising privacy will become increasingly valuable.

Drupal's AI framework supports over 48 AI platforms, providing flexibility in choosing AI providers. By combining this with privacy-respecting search through SearXNG, organisations can build powerful, intelligent applications that align with growing privacy expectations and regulations.

Conclusion

Privacy and powerful AI don't have to be mutually exclusive. The SearXNG Drupal module proves that organisations can build intelligent, helpful AI assistants that respect user privacy. Whether you're building internal tools, public-facing applications, or specialised platforms, this module provides a foundation for privacy-first AI that can search the web without compromising user trust.

As data privacy regulations continue to evolve and users become more aware of digital privacy issues, tools like the SearXNG module will become increasingly essential. By adopting privacy-first approaches now, organisations can build user trust while delivering the intelligent, helpful experiences that modern web applications demand.

Find out more and download on the dedicated SearXNG Drupal project page.

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Smartbees: Search Engine Query Reporting

Discover how we helped the client monitor searched phrases and enabled them to get a deeper insight into user needs. read more

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Capellic: Stephen appears on TD Cafe: What to expect at the Nonprofit Summit at DrupalCon Chicago

Stephen Musgrave appeared on TD Cafe episode 15 with Karen Horrocks, a co-organizer of the summit, to talk about what to expect when attending the Nonprofit Summit at DrupalCon Chicago. They dive into the agenda in detail, share anecdotes, and urge you to attend! read more

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A Drupal Couple: The Blueprint for Affordable Drupal Projects

The Blueprint for Affordable Drupal Projects

Image

Imagen

Article body

For years we have been talking about how Drupal got too expensive for the markets we used to serve. Regional clients, small and medium businesses in Latin America, Africa, Asia, anywhere where $100,000 websites are simply not a reality. We watched them go to WordPress. We watched them go to Wix. Not because Drupal was worse, but because the economics stopped working.

That conversation is changing.

Drupal CMS 2.0 landed in January 2026. And with it came a set of tools that, combined intelligently, make something possible that was not realistic before: an affordable, professional Drupal site delivered for $2,000, with margin, for markets that could not afford us before.

I want to show you the math. Not to sell you a fantasy, but because I did the exercise and the numbers work. And I am being conservative.

What changed

The real budget killer was always theming. Getting a site to look right, behave right, be maintainable, took serious senior hours. That is where budgets went.

Recipes pre-package common configurations so you are not starting from zero. Canvas lets clients and site builders assemble and manage pages visually once a developer sets up the component library.

Dripyard brings professional Drupal themes built specifically for Canvas (although works with Layout Builder, Paragraphs, etc), with excellent quality and accessibility, at around $500. While that seems expensive, the code quality, designs, and accessibility are top notch and will save at least 20 hours (and usually much more), which would easily eat up a small budget.

Three tools. One problem solved.

We proved the concept about a month ago with laollita.es, built in three days using Umami as a starting point. Umami as a version 0.5 of what a proper template should be. Drupal AI for translations, AI-assisted development for CSS and small components. Without formal templates. With proper ones, it gets faster.

The $2,000 blueprint

Scope first. Most small business sites are simple: services, about us, blog, team, contact. The moment you add custom modules or complex requirements, the budget goes up. This blueprint is for projects that accept that constraint.

Start with Drupal CMS and a Dripyard theme. Recipes handle the configuration. Add AI assistance, a paid plan with a capable model, Claude runs between $15 and $50 depending on usage. Let it help you move faster, but supervise everything. The moment you stop reviewing AI decisions is the moment quality starts leaking.

For hosting, go with a Drupal CMS-specific provider like Drupito, Drupal Forge, or Flexsite, around $20 to $50 per month. Six months included for your client is $300. Those same $300 could go toward a site template from the marketplace launching at DrupalCon Chicago in March 2026, compressing your development time further.

With a constrained scope, the right tools, and AI under supervision, ten hours of net work is realistic. At LATAM-viable rates, $30 per hour on the high side, that is $300 in labor.

The cost breakdown: $500 theme, $300 hosting or template, $300 labor, $50 AI tools. Total: $1,150. Add a $300 buffer and you are at $1,450. Charge $2,000. Your profit is $550, a 27.5% margin.

And I am being conservative. As you build experience with the theme, develop your own component library, and refine your tooling, the numbers improve. The first project teaches you. The third one pays better.

The $1,000 path

Smaller budget, smaller scope. Start with Byte or Haven, two Drupal CMS site templates on Drupal.org, or generate an HTML template with AI for around $50. A site template from the upcoming marketplace will run around $300.

The math: $300 starting point, $150 for three months of hosting, $200 incidentals. Cost: $450. Charge $1,000. Margin: 35%.

A $1,000 project is a few pages, clear scope, no special requirements. Both you and the client have to be honest about that upfront.

The real value for your client

When a client chooses Wix or WordPress to save money, they are choosing a ceiling. The day they need more, they are either rebuilding from scratch or paying for plugins and extras that someone still has to configure, maintain, and update every time the platform breaks something.

A client on Drupal CMS is on a platform that grows with them. The five-page site today can become a complex application tomorrow, on the same platform, without migrating. That is the conversation worth having. Not just what they get today, but what they will never have to undo.

The tools are there

The market in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and similar regions was always there. We just did not have the tools to serve it profitably. Now we do.

Drupal CMS, Canvas, Recipes, Dripyard, Drupal CMS-specific hosting, AI assistance with human oversight. The toolkit exists. Get back on trail.

Author

Carlos Ospina

Abstract

Drupal CMS 2.0, Canvas, Recipes, and Dripyard have changed the economics of Drupal for regional markets. This is the blueprint for building professional Drupal sites at $1,000 to $2,000 with real margin, for LATAM, Africa, Asia, and similar markets that Drupal could not serve before.

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DDEV Blog: DDEV February 2026: v1.25.0 Ships, 72% Market Share, and New Training Posts

DDEV v1.25.0 is here, and the community response has been strong. This month also brought three new training blog posts and a survey result that speaks for itself.

What's New

DDEV v1.25.0 Released → Improved Windows installer (no admin required), XHGui as default profiler, updated defaults (PHP 8.4, Node.js 24, MariaDB 11.8), faster snapshots with zstd compression, and experimental rootless container support. Read the release post↗
New ddev share Provider System → Free Cloudflare Tunnel support, no login or token required. A modular provider system with hooks and CMS-specific configuration. Read more↗
Mutagen in DDEV: Functionality, Issues, and Debugging → Based on the January training session, this post covers how Mutagen works, common issues, and the new ddev utility mutagen-diagnose command. Read more↗
Xdebug in DDEV: Understanding and Troubleshooting Step Debugging → How the reverse connection model works, IDE setup for PhpStorm and VS Code, common issues, and the new ddev utility xdebug-diagnose command. Read more↗

CraftQuest Survey: DDEV at 72%

The 2026 CraftQuest Community Survey↗ collected responses from 253 Craft CMS developers and found DDEV at 72% market share for local development environments. The report notes: "This near-standardization simplifies onboarding for newcomers, reduces support burden for plugin developers, and means the ecosystem can optimize tooling around a single local dev workflow."

Conference Time!

I'll be at Florida Drupalcamp this week, and will speak on how to use git worktree to run multiple versions of the same site. I'd love to see you and sit down and hear your experience with DDEV and ways you think it could be better.

Then in March I'll be at DrupalCon Chicago and as usual will do lots of Birds-of-a-Feather sessions about DDEV and related topics. Catch me in the hall, or let's sit down and have a coffee.

Community Highlights

ddev-mngr → A Go-based command-line tool with an interactive terminal UI for managing multiple DDEV projects at once — start, stop, check status, and open URLs across projects. With this add-on Olivier Dobberkau inspired a new TUI approach for DDEV core as well! View on GitHub↗
TYPO3 DDEV Agent Skill → Netresearch built an Agent Skill (compatible with Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, and GitHub Copilot) that automates DDEV environment setup for TYPO3 extension development, including multi-version testing environments for TYPO3 11.5, 12.4, and 13.4 LTS. View on GitHub↗
Using Laravel Boost with DDEV → Russell Jones explains how to integrate Laravel Boost (an official MCP server) with DDEV, giving AI coding agents contextual access to routes, database schema, logs, and configuration. Read on Dev.to↗
Laravel VS Code Extension v1.4.2 → Now includes Docker integration support and a fix for Pint functionality within DDEV environments. Read more↗

Community Tutorials from Around the World

Getting Started with DDEV for Drupal Development → Ivan Zugec at WebWash published a guide covering installation, daily commands, database import/export, Xdebug setup, and add-ons. Read on WebWash↗
Environnement de développement WordPress avec DDEV → Stéphane Arrami shares a practical review of adopting DDEV for WordPress development, covering client projects, personal sites, and training (in French). Read more↗

What People Are Saying

"I was today years old when I found out that DDEV exists. Now I am busy migrating all projects to Docker containers." — @themuellerman.bsky.social↗

"ddev is the reason I don't throw my laptop out of the window during local setup wars. one command to run the stack and forget the rest. simple as that." — @OMascatinho on X↗

v1.25.0 Upgrade Notes and Known Issues

Every major release brings some friction, and v1.25.0 is no exception. These will generally be solved in v1.25.1, which will be out soon. Here's what to watch for:

deb.sury.org certificate expiration on v1.24.x → The GPG key for the PHP package repository expired on February 4, breaking ddev start for users still on v1.24.10 who needed to rebuild containers. We pushed updated images for v1.24.10, so you can either ddev poweroff && ddev utility download-images or just go ahead and upgrade to v1.25.0, which shipped with the updated key. Details↗
MariaDB 11.8 client and SSL → DDEV v1.25.0 ships with MariaDB 11.8 client (required for Debian Trixie), which defaults to requiring SSL. This can break drush sql-cli and similar tools on MariaDB versions below 10.11. Workaround: add extra: "--skip-ssl" to your drush/drush.yml under command.sql.options, or upgrade your database to MariaDB 10.11+. Details↗

MySQL collation issues → Importing databases can silently change collations, leading to "Illegal mix of collations" errors when joining imported tables with newly created ones. Separately, overriding MySQL server collation via .ddev/mysql/*.cnf doesn't work as expected. #8130↗ #8129↗
Inter-container HTTP(S) communication → The ddev-router doesn't always update network aliases when projects start or stop, which can break container-to-container requests for *.ddev.site hostnames. Details↗
Downgrading to v1.24.10 → If you need to go back to v1.24.10, you'll need to clean up ~/.ddev/traefik/config — leftover v1.25.0 Traefik configuration breaks the older version. Details↗
Traefik debug logging noise → Enabling Traefik debug logging surfaces warning-level messages as "router configuration problems" during ddev start and ddev list, which looks alarming but is harmless. Details↗
ddev npm and working_dir → ddev npm doesn't currently respect the working_dir web setting, a difference from v1.24.10. Details↗

As always, please open an issue↗ if you run into trouble — it helps us fix things faster. You're the reason DDEV works so well!

DDEV Training Continues

Join us for upcoming training sessions for contributors and users.

February 26, 2026 at 10:00 US ET / 16:00 CET — Git bisect for fun and profit Add to Google Calendar • Download .ics
March 26, 2026 at 10:00 US ET / 15:00 CET — Using git worktree with DDEV projects and with DDEV itself Add to Google Calendar • Download .ics
April 23, 2026 at 10:00 US ET / 16:00 CEST — Creating, maintaining and testing add-ons 2026-updated version of our popular add-on training. Previous session recording↗ Add to Google Calendar • Download .ics

Zoom Info: Link: Join Zoom Meeting Passcode: 12345

Sponsorship Update

After the community rallied in January, sponsorship has held steady and ticked up slightly. Thank you!

Previous status (January 2026): ~$8,208/month (68% of goal)

February 2026: ~$8,422/month (70% of goal)

If DDEV has helped your team, now is the time to give back. Whether you're an individual developer, an agency, or an organization — your contribution makes a difference. → Become a sponsor↗

Contact us to discuss sponsorship options that work for your organization.

Stay in the Loop—Follow Us and Join the Conversation

Compiled and edited with assistance from Claude Code.

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February 2026 Drupal for Nonprofits Chat

Join us THURSDAY, February 19 at 1pm ET / 10am PT, for our regularly scheduled call to chat about all things Drupal and nonprofits. (Convert to your local time zone.)

We don't have anything specific on the agenda this month, so we'll have plenty of time to discuss anything that's on our minds at the intersection of Drupal and nonprofits. Got something specific you want to talk about? Feel free to share ahead of time in our collaborative Google document at https://nten.org/drupal/notes!

All nonprofit Drupal devs and users, regardless of experience level, are always welcome on this call.

This free call is sponsored by NTEN.org and open to everyone.

Information on joining the meeting can be found in our collaborative Google document.

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Four Weeks of High Velocity Development for Drupal AI

While Artificial Intelligence is evolving rapidly, many applications remain experimental and difficult to implement in professional production environments. The Drupal AI Initiative addresses this directly, driving responsible AI innovation by channelling the community's creative energy into a clear, coordinated product vision for Drupal.

In this article, the third in a series, we highlight the outcomes of the latest development sprints of the Drupal AI Initiative. Part one outlines the 2026 roadmap presented by Dries Buytaert. Part two addresses the organisation and new working model for the delivery of AI functionality.

Authors: Arian, Christoph, Piyuesh, Rakhi (alphabetical)

Dries Buytaert presenting the status of Drupal AI Initiative at DrupalCon Vienna 2025

Converting ambition into measurable progress

To turn the potential of AI into a reliable reality for the Drupal ecosystem, we have developed a repeatable, high-velocity production model that has already delivered significant results in its first four weeks.

A Dual-Workstream Approach to Innovation

To maximize efficiency and scale, development is organized into two closely collaborating workstreams. Together, they form a clear pipeline from exploration and prototyping to stable functionality:

The Innovation Workstream: Led by QED42, this stream explores emerging technologies like evaluating Symfony AI, building AI-driven page creation, prompt context management, and the latest LLM capabilities to define what is possible within the ecosystem.
The Product Workstream: Led by 1xINTERNET, this team takes proven innovations and refines, tests, and integrates them into a stable Drupal AI product ensuring they are ready for enterprise use.

Sustainable Management through the RFP Model

This structure is powered by a Request for Proposal (RFP) model, sponsored by 28 organizations partnering with the Drupal AI Initiative.

The management of these workstreams is designed to rotate every six months via a new RFP process. Currently, 1xINTERNET provides the Product Owner for Product Development and QED42 provides the Product Owner for Innovation, while FreelyGive provides core technical architecture. This model ensures the initiative remains sustainable and neutral, while benefiting from the consistent professional expertise provided by the partners of the Drupal AI Initiative.

Professional Expertise from our AI Partners

The professional delivery of the initiative is driven by our AI Partners, who provide the specialized resources required for implementation. To maintain high development velocity, we operate in two-week sprint iterations. This predictable cadence allows our partners to effectively plan their staff allocations and ensures consistent momentum.

The Product Owners for each workstream work closely with the AI Initiative Leadership to deliver on the one-year roadmap. They maintain well-prepared backlogs, ensuring that participating organizations can contribute where their specific technical strengths are most impactful.

By managing the complete development lifecycle, including software engineering, UX design, quality assurance, and peer reviews, the sprint teams ensure the delivery of stable and well-architected solutions that are ready for production environments.

The Strategic Role of AI in Drupal CMS

The work of the AI Initiative provides important functionality to the recently launched Drupal CMS 2.0. This release represents one of the most significant evolutions in Drupal’s 25-year history, introducing Drupal Canvas and a suite of AI-powered tools within a visual-first platform designed for marketing teams and site builders alike.

The strategic cooperation between the Drupal AI Initiative and the Drupal CMS team ensures that our professional-grade AI framework delivers critical functionality while aligning with the goals of Drupal CMS.

Results from our first Sprints

The initial sprints demonstrate the high productivity of this dual-workstream approach, driven directly by the specialized staff of our partnering organizations. In the first two weeks, the sprint teams resolved 143 issues, creating significant momentum right from the first sprint.

Screenshot Drupal AI Dashboard

This surge of activity resulted in the largest regular patch release in the history of the Drupal AI module. This achievement was made possible by the intensive collaboration between several expert companies working in sync. Increased contribution from our partners will allow us to further accelerate development velocity, improving the capacity to deliver more advanced technical features in the coming months.

Screen recording Agents Debugger

Highlights from the first sprints

While the volume of work is significant, some new features stand out. Here are a few highlights from our recent sprint reviews:

AI Dashboard in Drupal CMS 2.0: Artem from 1xINTERNET presented the AI Dashboard functionality. This central hub for managing AI features and providers has been officially moved into the Drupal CMS 2.0 release, serving as the user interface for AI site management.
Advanced Automation: Anjali from QED42 presented new JSON and Audio field automators, which enable Drupal to process complex data types via AI.
The Context Control Center: Kristen from Salsa Digital presented the evolution of our context governance, converting config entities into content entities to enable revision management and better targeting.
The New Markdown Editor: Bruno from 1xINTERNET demonstrated a sleek new Markdown editor for prompt fields, featuring type-ahead autocomplete for variables and tokens. This will be released with the 1.3 version of the Drupal AI module.
Agents Debugger: To help developers see "under the hood," Marcus from FreelyGive introduced the new debugger module to trace AI agent interactions in real-time.
Technical Deep-Dives: We’ve seen steady progress on Symfony AI (presented by Akhil from QED42), Model Context Protocol (presented by Abhisek from DropSolid), and Reranking Models (led by Sergiu from DropSolid) to improve search quality.

Become a Drupal AI Partner

Our success so far is thanks to the companies who have stepped up as Drupal AI Partners. These organizations are leading the way in defining how AI and the Open Web intersect.
A huge thank you to our main contributors of the first two sprints (alphabetical order):

We invite further participation from the community. If your organization is interested in contributing expert resources to the forefront of AI development, we encourage you to join the initiative.

Sign up to join the Drupal AI Initiative

File attachments:

Drupal_AI_BlogPos.gif

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GitLab issue migration: how to use the new workflow

Now that some of the projects that opted-in for GitLab issues are using them, they are getting real world experience with how the issue workflow in GitLab is slightly different. More and more projects are being migrated each week so sooner or later you will probably run into the following situations.

Creating new issues

When creating issues, the form is very simple. Add a title and a description and save, that's it!

GitLab has different work items when working on projects, like "Incidents", "Tasks" and "Issues". Our matching type will always be "Issue". Maintainers might choose to use the other types, but all integrations with Drupal.org will be made against "Issue" items.

Labels (issue metadata)

As mentioned in the previous blog post GitLab issue migration: the new workflow for migrated projects, all the metadata for issues is managed via labels. Maintainers will select the labels once the issue is created.

Users without sufficient privileges cannot decide things like priority or tags to use. Maintainers can decide to grant the role "reporter" to some users to help with this metadata for the issues. Reporters will be able to add/edit metadata when adding or editing issues. We acknowledge that this is probably the biggest difference to working with Drupal.org issues. We are listening to feedback and trying to identify the real needs first (thanks to the projects that opted in), before implementing anything permanent.

Reporters will be able to add or edit labels on issue creation or edit:

So far, we have identified the biggest missing piece, the ability to mark an issue as RTBC. Bouncing between "Needs work" or "Needs review" tends to happen organically via comments among the participating contributors in the issue, but RTBC is probably what some maintainers look for to get an issue merged.

The previous are conventions that we agreed on as a community a while back. RTBC is one, NW (Needs Work) vs NR (Needs Review) is another one, so we could use this transition to GitLab issues to define the equivalent ones.

GitLab merge requests offer several choices that we could easily leverage.

Draft vs ready could mimic "Needs work" vs "Needs review". Contributors will switch this back and forth depending on the feedback needed on the code.
Merge request approvals could mimic "RTBC". This is something that can even be required (number of approvals or approval rules) per project, depending on the maintainer's preferences.

We encourage maintainers to look at the merge requests listing instead (like this one). Both "draft" vs. "ready" and "approved" are features you can filter by when viewing merge requests for a project.

Automated messages

There are automated messages when opening or closing issues that provide links related to fork management, fork information, and access request when creating forks, and reminders to update the contribution record links to the issue to track credit information.

Crosslinking between Drupal.org issues and GitLab issues

When referring to a Drupal.org issue from another Drupal.org issue, you can continue to use the [#123] syntax in the summary and comments, but enter the full URL in the "related issues" entry box.

When referring to a GitLab issue from another GitLab issue, use the #123 syntax, without the enclosing [ ].

For cross-platform references (Drupal to GitLab or GitLab to Drupal), you need to use the full URL.

What's next

Same as before, we want to go and review more of the already opted-in projects, collect feedback, act on it when needed, and then we will start to batch-migrate the next set: low-usage projects, projects with a low number of issues, etc.

The above should get us 80% of the way regarding the total number of projects to migrate, and once we have gathered more feedback and iterated over it, we'll be ready to target higher-volume, higher-usage projects.

Related blog posts:

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Drupal's AI Roadmap for 2026

This is cross-posted from Dries Buytaert's blog

For the past months, the AI Initiative Leadership Team has been working with our contributing partners to define what the Drupal AI initiative should focus on in 2026. That plan is now ready, and I want to share it with the community.

This roadmap builds directly on the strategy we outlined in Accelerating AI Innovation in Drupal. That post described the direction. This plan turns it into concrete priorities and execution for 2026.

The full plan is available as a PDF, but let me explain the thinking behind it.

Producing consistently high-quality content and pages is really hard. Excellent content requires a subject matter expert who actually knows the topic, a copywriter who can translate expertise into clear language, someone who understands your audience and brand, someone who knows how to structure pages with your component library, good media assets, and an SEO/AEO specialist so people actually discover what you made.

Most organizations are missing at least some of these skillsets, and even when all the people exist, coordinating them is where everything breaks down. We believe AI can fill these gaps, not by replacing these roles but by making their expertise available to every content creator on the team.

For large organizations, this means stronger brand consistency, better accessibility, and improved compliance across thousands of pages. For smaller ones, it means access to skills that were previously out of reach: professional copywriting, SEO, and brand-consistent design without needing a specialist for each.

Used carelessly, AI just makes these problems worse by producing fast, generic content that sounds like everything else on the internet. But used well, with real structure and governance behind it, AI can help organizations raise the bar on quality rather than just volume.

Drupal has always been built around the realities of serious content work: structured content, workflows, permissions, revisions, moderation, and more. These capabilities are what make quality possible at scale. They're also exactly the foundation AI needs to actually work well.

Rather than bolting on a chatbot or a generic text generator, we're embedding AI into the content and page creation process itself, guided by the structure, governance, and brand rules that already live in Drupal.

For website owners, the value is faster site building, faster content delivery, smarter user journeys, higher conversions, and consistent brand quality at scale. For digital agencies, it means delivering higher-quality websites in less time. And for IT teams, it means less risk and less overhead: automated compliance, auditable changes, and fewer ad hoc requests to fix what someone published.

We think the real opportunity goes further than just adding AI to what we already have. It's also about connecting how content gets created, how it performs, and how it gets governed into one loop, so that what you learn from your content actually shapes what you build next.

The things that have always made Drupal good at content are the same things that make AI trustworthy. That is not a coincidence, and it's why we believe Drupal is the right place to build this.

What we're building in 2026

The 2026 plan identifies eight capabilities we'll focus on. Each is described in detail in the full plan, but here is a quick overview:

Page generation - Describe what you need and get a usable page, built from your actual design system components
Context management - A central place to define brand voice, style guides, audience profiles, and governance rules that AI can use
Background agents - AI that works without being prompted, responding to triggers and schedules while respecting editorial workflows
Design system integration - AI that builds with your components and can propose new ones when needed
Content creation and discovery - Smarter search, AI-powered optimization, and content drafting assistance
Advanced governance - Batch approvals, branch-based versioning, and comprehensive audit trails for AI changes
Intelligent website improvements - AI that learns from performance data, proposes concrete changes, and gets smarter over time through editorial review
Multi-channel campaigns - Create content for websites, social, email, and automation platforms from a single campaign goal

These eight capabilities are where the official AI Initiative is focusing its energy, but they're not the whole picture for AI in Drupal. There is a lot more we want to build that didn't make this initial list, and we expect to revisit the plan in six months to a year.

We also want to be clear: community contributions outside this scope are welcome and important. Work on migrations, chatbots, and other AI capabilities continues in the broader Drupal community. If you're building something that isn't in our 2026 plan, keep going.

How we're making this happen

Over the past year, we've brought together organizations willing to contribute people and funding to the AI initiative. Today, 28 organizations support the initiative, collectively pledging more than 23 full-time equivalent contributors. That is over 50 individual contributors working across time zones and disciplines.

Coordinating 50+ people across organizations takes real structure, so we've hired two dedicated teams from among our partners:

QED42 is focused on innovation, pushing forward on what is next.
1xINTERNET is focused on productization, taking what we've built and making it stable, intuitive, and easy to install.

Both teams are creating backlogs, managing issues, and giving all our contributors clear direction. You can read more about how contributions are coordinated.

This is a new model for Drupal. We're testing whether open source can move faster when you pool resources and coordinate professionally.

Get involved

If you're a contributing partner, we're asking you to align your contributions with this plan. The prioritized backlogs are in place, so pick up something that fits and let's build.

If you're not a partner but want to contribute, jump in. The prioritized backlogs are open to everyone.

And if you want to join the initiative as an official partner, we'd absolutely welcome that.

This plan wasn't built in a room by itself. It's the result of collaboration across 28 sponsoring organizations who bring expertise in UX, core development, QA, marketing, and more. Thank you.

We're building something new for Drupal, in a new way, and I'm excited to see where it goes.

— Dries Buytaert

File attachments:

Drupal AI Social Post.png

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Drupal's AI Roadmap for 2026

This is cross-posted from Dries Buytaert's blog