CombinaryStream

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Omega8.cc: Classic Ægir, Welcomed Home

Somewhere out there a vanilla Ægir server is still quietly serving its Drupal sites, years after the person who set it up moved on. The aegir2boa toolset gives these classic estates a supported road into BOA: a read-only preflight which grades your box, an in-place Apache to Nginx flip proven on a scratch port before any handover, and a remote adoption which pauses, dumps, ships and registers each site while the old box becomes a small proxy where putting a site back is one file move. Every acting verb rehearses first, one clean rehearsal buys exactly one live run, and until DNS moves there is a drilled way back from every step; drilled meaning drilled: four full runs on throwaway boxes, an HTTPS estate with a composer platform, a mixed Drupal 6 and 7 estate, an Ubuntu source carried into Percona 8.4, then all of it again into both database generations, on the very tool bytes you would download. Free and open source, and it never asks for root database access on the box it is rescuing. read more

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The Drop Times: Built for TDT, Now Used Beyond It: The Journey of a Drupal Module

A weekend fix built for The DropTimes now supports sites its maintainer may never see, bringing the responsibilities of public module maintenance into focus. read more

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The Drop Times: Your Client Is Not a Ticket

A perfectly completed ticket can still solve the wrong problem. Tom Hollevoet argues that better Drupal delivery begins with understanding the need behind the request. read more

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Take Part in the 2026 Drupal Business Survey

The Drupal Business Survey investigates the trends in the digital market, in particular from service providers involved with the open source Drupal CMS and enterprise platform. Digital agencies from all over the world participate in the yearly survey and the business insights on market share and growth opportunities gained are shared with those who’ve submitted responses.

Begun many years ago by Drupal Business Network with Janne Kalliola, Michel Van Velde, and Imre Gmelig Meijling, the survey is now administered by the Drupal Association to promote global reach and protect the confidentiality of the information. Moving forward, the Drupal Association will handle the analysis and reporting of the anonymised data from the survey. We're grateful to Janne, Michel, and Imre for their many years of work in shaping and running the survey.

Drupal’s open source ecosystem is supported by a strong community of tens of thousands professionals worldwide, working together on the popular digital experience platform. Because Drupal is open source, anyone can work with Drupal or make changes to it. An important part of this community are the agencies that provide Drupal services to end users and drive Drupal’s market. The Drupal Business Survey seeks the input from these agencies so that meaningful data for business owners and decision makers can be built into their business strategies.

The Drupal Business Survey has been a valuable guide for digital service providers, even to those working with other technologies than Drupal.

Take the survey here!

About the Business Survey

The Drupal Business Survey supports Drupal businesses worldwide and is organised by the Drupal Association. The survey was founded by Imre Gmelig Meijling (React Online), Janne Kalliola (Exove) and Michel van Velde (Craftmore), and we're grateful for their years of work in building it into what it is today.

Drupal is the open source Digital Experience Platform used by many organisations worldwide including Nestlé, Lufthansa and World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Participate and share your insights

Drupal experts are invited to share their Drupal business insights through the Business Survey anonymously and come to DrupalCon Europe to review the results together.

You can take the Drupal Business Survey 2026 anonymously here. The survey closes on 7 September.

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Drupal Association blog: Take Part in the 2026 Drupal Business Survey

The Drupal Business Survey investigates the trends in the digital market, in particular from service providers involved with the open source Drupal CMS and enterprise platform. Digital agencies from all over the world participate in the yearly survey and the business insights on market share and growth opportunities gained are shared with those who’ve submitted responses.

Begun many years ago by Drupal Business Network with Janne Kalliola, Michel Van Velde, and Imre Gmelig Meijling, the survey is now administered by the Drupal Association to promote global reach and protect the confidentiality of the information. Moving forward, the Drupal Association will handle the analysis and reporting of the anonymised data from the survey. We're grateful to Janne, Michel, and Imre for their many years of work in shaping and running the survey.

Drupal’s open source ecosystem is supported by a strong community of tens of thousands professionals worldwide, working together on the popular digital experience platform. Because Drupal is open source, anyone can work with Drupal or make changes to it. An important part of this community are the agencies that provide Drupal services to end users and drive Drupal’s market. The Drupal Business Survey seeks the input from these agencies so that meaningful data for business owners and decision makers can be built into their business strategies.

The Drupal Business Survey has been a valuable guide for digital service providers, even to those working with other technologies than Drupal.

Take the survey here!

About the Business Survey

The Drupal Business Survey supports Drupal businesses worldwide and is organised by the Drupal Association. The survey was founded by Imre Gmelig Meijling (React Online), Janne Kalliola (Exove) and Michel van Velde (Craftmore), and we're grateful for their years of work in building it into what it is today.

Drupal is the open source Digital Experience Platform used by many organisations worldwide including Nestlé, Lufthansa and World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Participate and share your insights

Drupal experts are invited to share their Drupal business insights through the Business Survey anonymously and come to DrupalCon Europe to review the results together.

You can take the Drupal Business Survey 2026 anonymously here. The survey closes on 7 September.

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Beyond Headless - How Drupalists, Front-End Natives, and LLMs All Win with Next.js

Next.js is one of the fastest growing web technologies on the internet, by far the most popular framework for assembling websites using React components. A generation of web development talent learned this approach to building — JAMStack instead of LAMP — but the front-end is only half the solution. While having Drupal feed a front-end via API is nothing new, historical approaches to headless implementation have been costly, complex, and involved difficult trade-offs. But what if you could forget about traditional “theming” work, and let your designers and Javascript devs use their preferred tools, while seamlessly (and quickly) integrating Drupal as a back-end to feed content and even page layout to a fully-featured Next.js front-end? As Drupal has modernized with Single Directory Components and Canvas, and as stronger standards have emerged for component-based design systems, new approaches are emerging that offer ways for everyone to win. It’s also worth noting that this component-first perspective is a key way to safely and tastefully leverage LLMs to accelerate both development and site building. In this session, Josh Koenig, co-founder at Pantheon, and Tim Lehnen, CTO of the Drupal Association, will talk about the current state of the art with Drupal, and what’s coming from the world of JS and component-based design, and walk through how some teams are learning how to make everyone happy and move faster than ever before. read more

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DDEV Blog: DDEV v1.25.4: Database Seeding and Reset, MySQL 9.7 LTS, Global Configuration, New Project Types

DDEV v1.25.4 is here: 142 PRs from the entire DDEV community. Your suggestions, bug reports, code, and financial support made it possible.

The theme of this release is doing less by hand. A new project can start with a "seed" database you already have, and image and environment customizations can be set globally instead of in every project.

:::note[Linux and WSL2: new package repositories] DDEV's apt and rpm packages are now published to Cloudsmith at packages.ddev.com. Gemfury (pkg.ddev.com) keeps working, so switch over whenever it suits you by re-running the Linux installation steps.

Package repository hosting is graciously provided by Cloudsmith. :::

Database Seeding and Reset

Until now, a fresh project always started with an empty database, and getting your data back in there meant importing a dump or snapshot every time. DDEV can now automatically use a snapshot, which is far quicker than importing a SQL file.

ddev start --seed-snapshot=<name-or-path> fills a brand-new database from a snapshot in .ddev/db_snapshots, or from a path to one anywhere else on your machine. It works with MariaDB, MySQL, and PostgreSQL.
seed is a reserved snapshot name. Run ddev snapshot --name=seed once, and from then on any ddev delete followed by ddev start brings that database back, with no flag to remember. You can even check .ddev/db_snapshots/seed* into Git if it's not annoyingly large.
ddev start --reset-database throws the current database away and starts over, taking a snapshot first. The flags can be combined (works with both ddev start and ddev restart): ddev start --reset-database --seed-snapshot=large-dataset --omit-snapshot.

There's more to snapshots in this release: sizes and database versions in ddev snapshot --list, snapshots shared across Git worktrees, and uncompressed snapshots for faster restores. See Snapshots for all of it.

MySQL 9.7 LTS Support

DDEV now supports MySQL 9.7, the latest LTS release:

# New project
ddev config --database=mysql:9.7
# Existing project
ddev utility migrate-database mysql:9.7

MySQL 8.0 and 8.4 also switched base images, from bitnamilegacy/mysql, which no longer receives updates, to Docker Hardened Images (dhi.io/mysql).

Global Configuration: Set It Once, for Every Project

If you've ever added the same company CA certificate, apt package, or API token to every project you work on, this release is for you.

Global Dockerfiles in ~/.ddev/web-build/ and ~/.ddev/db-build/ apply the same image customization everywhere: system tools, extra packages, or container-level SSL trust for curl, Composer, and Node.js, which used to be a per-project chore. A project overrides any of it with the same filename in its own .ddev/web-build/. Thanks to @rmott-littler.

Global env files ~/.ddev/.env and ~/.ddev/.env.<service> set environment variables for every project. Before this, the only global option was web_environment in ~/.ddev/global_config.yaml, which reaches the web container and nothing else. Now you can do it for db, or any other service:

# Set API_URL for the web service of every project
ddev dotenv global set .ddev/.env.web --api-url=https://example.com

Project env files gained two pieces in their names, too. A trailing .local, as in .ddev/.env.local, tells DDEV to gitignore the file, which is where credentials belong. A label, as in .ddev/.env.web.myaddon, keeps files from different sources apart, so an add-on isn't editing the same file you are.

New Project Types and Shopware 6 Without an Add-on

Two project types joined DDEV:

Maho, thanks to @fballiano
MODX Revolution 2.x and 3.x, thanks to @casparml

Shopware 6 projects now get shopware-cli right in the web image, along with ddev admin-watch, ddev storefront-watch, and the ports they need. The ddev-shopware-cli add-on isn't needed anymore. Thanks to @vanWittlaer.

New Commands and Flags

ddev add-on update updates the installed add-ons that are behind their latest GitHub release, with --dry-run to preview.
ddev utility download-ddev fetches the ddev binaries for a PR, branch, commit, or tag without touching your installed DDEV, which is handy for testing a fix before it ships.
ddev utility delete-volume removes one of a project's Docker volumes, for add-ons like ddev-solr that create their own.
ddev launch --print-url prints the URL instead of opening a browser, for SSH, containers, and CI, thanks to @steffenmaechtel.
ddev tablepro opens the project database in TablePro on macOS, thanks to @datlechin.

DDEV Tells You What's Wrong

A wrong docroot used to produce a bare 404/403 page with no hints about why. Now ddev-webserver explains the 403s and 404s it generates itself, and ddev-router does the same for a hostname that doesn't match any project:

The page says where it came from, so you know it isn't your application's own 404, and it lists what to check. A 403 or 404 from your own application is passed through untouched.

It also replaces the old "docroot may be wrong" warning on ddev start, which you never saw in a browser and which sometimes fired when nothing was wrong.

Regressions from v1.25.3, Fixed

DDEV v1.25.3 introduced a few problems, and the ones you're most likely to have run into are resolved here:

Project image builds are fast again. Permissions on the Node.js directory were being changed recursively on every build, and are now set once.
Add-ons and applications that write log files straight into /var/log can do that again, after the directory was locked down to root only.
A site that generates its own /robots.txt works again. An Nginx rule was answering before your site could, and it's gone.

Other Fixes Worth Knowing About

ddev wp respects the path in your project's own wp-cli.yml again, falling back to the docroot only when that file doesn't set one. Since v1.24.5 it always added --path=$DDEV_DOCROOT, which broke Bedrock and any layout where WordPress isn't in the docroot.
Running ddev in a subdirectory with its own .ddev/config.yaml, such as a Drupal contrib module or a Git submodule, keeps using the outer project and tells you which one it picked, instead of switching silently and breaking the outer project's custom commands. ddev start there asks first.

Performance Is Measured Automatically Now

A nightly benchmark harness now times ddev start, ddev stop, Mutagen sync-settle, and a Drupal install across the platforms and Docker providers DDEV already tests on, and publishes the results to a performance history dashboard, so a regression shows up as a bend in a trend line instead of a bug report months later. A second dashboard tracks CI test runtime.

Everything Else

This release includes many more features and bugfixes. See the full release notes for the complete list.

From the entire team, thanks for using, promoting, contributing, and supporting DDEV!

If you have questions, reach out in any of the support channels.

If you're amazed by how much is in this release, we are too! If you wonder how all this could be done, it's because of generous sponsors who let two of us work on this every day. If you and your team aren't already financially supporting DDEV, consider joining our sponsors.

Follow our blog, Bluesky, LinkedIn, Mastodon, and join us on Discord. Sign up for the monthly newsletter.

This article was edited and refined with assistance from Claude Code.

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Metadrop: Fixing missing image alt attributes in Drupal without development

Missing image alt attributes cost accessibility and SEO points

Empty alt attributes are an accessibility and SEO killer, and the cost is measurable. Google Lighthouse flags the error on both of its audits: up to 6 points subtracted from the Accessibility score and 8 points from the SEO score.

The impact on real users is worse than the score. A screen reader completely ignores an image with no alt text, so blind users never know the image was there, which makes the experience disruptive and confusing. It also violates WCAG Success Criterion 1.1.1: Non-text Content, the baseline requirement for accessible non-text content.

That is why we had to act when a migration project resulted in thousands of images without an alt attribute.

A Drupal migration left 12,000 images without proper alt text

A Drupal 9 to Drupal 11 migration for a multilingual sports news project surfaced around 12,000 images with missing or incorrect alt attributes, found via Screaming Frog tool. Some images had no alt attribute at all, while others had alt text in the wrong language, with English alt text appearing on the /es version of the site.

The obvious next step was to look for a pattern. Was the issue tied to a specific content type, such as Articles? Was the wrong-language text caused by untranslated Media content? Answering these questions turned out to be surprisingly hard: Drupal provides no default mechanism, no view…

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Omega8.cc: Your Site Already Said No

AI traffic is not one thing, and a policy which treats it as one thing gets the answer wrong in both directions. Here the decision is written down, class by class: the crawlers which harvest sites to train models are turned away at the edge before a single line of Drupal or Backdrop runs, while AI search indexers, and the fetch a real person triggers by asking an assistant, stay open and rate-limited per vendor, not per address, because one prompt fans out across dozens of addresses. Every layer ships with the platform and runs on your own server; nothing is rented, and no rule lives somewhere you have no login for. Changing it for one site is one line in a file you own, live in about two minutes, deleted to restore the defaults; and your own policy goes out at /llms.txt straight from the site's files folder. The honest part is the best part: a user-agent can be forged, the maps fail open on purpose, and the docs say where each shield stops and the next one begins. read more

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Aten Design Group: Who Owns the Icon? Building Author-Friendly Icon Systems in Drupal

Who Owns the Icon? Building Author-Friendly Icon Systems in Drupal Joel Steidl Tue, 09/01/2026 - 11:34 Drupal

Icons seem like a small implementation detail until a site has a large design system, multiple authoring workflows, and content that changes independently of the theme.

Then a basic question becomes important: who owns the icon?

For some parts of an interface, the answer is clearly the theme. Alert states, event metadata, and other stable UI patterns should remain predictable.

Other icons behave more like content. Authors may need to choose an icon for a navigation item, card, banner, or other component. In those cases, hardcoding the choice in the theme creates a dependency between content and code that becomes difficult to maintain.

The goal is not to move every icon into Drupal. It is to give the right people control over the right decisions.

Start with ownership

I generally think about icons in two groups: icons whose meaning belongs to a fixed interface pattern, and icons whose meaning belongs to authored content.

An alert is a good example of the first group. Drupal or an author might determine that an alert has a warning status, but the theme should decide which icon represents “warning.”

Event metadata works the same way. Date, time, and location have stable meanings within an event teaser. Those icons belong to the component, not to an individual event.

Hardcoding those relationships protects consistency.

A site menu is different. Authors add, remove, rename, and reorder menu items. If an icon describes the purpose of a particular link, it should usually travel with that link rather than with its position in a template.

Component-based authoring introduces the same issue. An author might select an icon for a card or a decorative treatment for a banner. If that component moves or is reused, the visual choice should move with the content.

Most interfaces contain both models at once. A card might have an author-selected icon and a hardcoded arrow that communicates that the card is a link. A menu item might have an author-selected icon on the left and a fixed chevron on the right when it has children.The useful boundary is not Drupal versus the theme. It is which part of the system owns each decision.

When authored icons live in code, things get brittle

Menus make the problem especially visible.

A developer can attach an icon to the second menu item with CSS, but that relationship breaks as soon as an author inserts another link above it. Targeting a specific menu item identifier is more stable, but it still creates a developer-maintained connection between content and theme code.

A select list is another common approach:

For a small icon set, this can be perfectly reasonable.

The problem appears as the library grows. Authors are asked to understand the design system through filenames. The distinction between calendar, calendar-outline, and calendar-filled may be obvious to the developer who added them and much less obvious to someone building a page later.

Adding a new option may also require a theme change and deployment.

From the author's perspective, this is a content problem. From the developer's perspective, it is a theme problem.

Drupal already has a better interaction model for choosing visual assets.

Use Media when the icon is an authored choice

When authors choose an image, we do not normally give them a dropdown containing every filename on the site. Drupal's Media Library gives them visual previews, search, filtering, reuse, and asset management.

That interaction makes sense for icons too.

With SVG Image, SVG files can participate in Drupal's image field ecosystem and can be rendered as image elements or inline SVG markup.

Once icons become Media entities, they can also use Drupal's normal content model. They can have useful names, categories, permissions, and usage guidance. Views and reference configuration can limit which assets authors see in a particular context.

That matters because an icon library is rarely one undifferentiated collection.

Graphical UI icons used in menus or calls to action likely aren’t used in the same way more decorative accents are. The overhead of deciding which icon type should be used in which context shouldn’t be left to the author if we can provide clear guardrails.

This is where Media becomes more than a nicer picker. It provides a governance model.

Menus can gain Media reference fields through tools such as Menu Item Extras. Component systems based on Paragraphs can attach icon choices directly to the structured component. Style Options - Media Reference provides another way to expose Media selections in component configuration.

The exact implementation will vary by project. The important part is that once an icon becomes an entity, Drupal's existing fields, permissions, and filtering tools can manage it without requiring a custom icon picker.

Keep rendering predictable

Moving icons into Media improves the author experience, but the theme still needs a reliable rendering model.

The rule I use is simple:

HTML chooses the icon. CSS styles it.

Drupal or Twig should determine whether an icon exists and which icon it is. CSS should handle size, spacing, alignment, color, and interaction states.

That separation works particularly well with inline SVG. The SVG can inherit color from the component, respond to interaction states, and remain part of the markup rather than being hidden inside a stylesheet.

It also keeps accessibility decisions closer to the rendered interface. Decorative icons can be hidden from assistive technology, while meaningful controls can rely on appropriate accessible names rather than asking the icon itself to carry all of the meaning.

I previously built a small Twig helper in the Utility Belt module to make theme SVG rendering easier. It solved a practical problem, but Drupal's newer Icon API offers a more standardized direction.

Drupal 11.1 introduced an Icon API that allows themes and modules to expose icon packs through a common rendering system. Contributed projects such as Icon Media Pack are exploring how Media bundles can participate in that model.

That creates an interesting division of responsibility: Media can handle author-facing governance, while the Icon API can provide developers with a predictable rendering path.

There are still exceptions.

Native form controls sometimes need icons as CSS backgrounds or masks because their markup cannot easily contain rendered SVG children. In those cases, keeping a small set of duplicate assets in the theme can be a reasonable tradeoff.

The point is not to eliminate every exception. It is to make the boundary intentional.

Give each part of the system the control it needs

An author-friendly icon system is not one where authors can change every icon.

It is one where authored decisions are actually authorable.

If an icon belongs to a stable interface pattern, keep that relationship in the theme. If the icon represents something an author is creating or organizing, consider modeling that choice in Drupal.

Media can provide the visual browsing and governance authors need. The theme can continue to protect rendering and presentation.

That division is more maintainable than treating icons as entirely theme code or entirely content, and it better reflects how complex Drupal sites actually operate.

James Nettik read more

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Berliners blog: Rebuilding a data-driven Drupal site: Migrating page element configuration from Panels to Layout Builder

Rebuilding a data-driven Drupal site: Migrating page element configuration from Panels to Layout Builder

In the previous post in this series, I described how we rebuilt our ctools page elements as block plugins.

That gave us the new implementations, but not the pages that had already been assembled in Drupal 7. Recreating them manually would have taken a long time and risked losing existing configuration along the way.

We did not want to migrate complete Panels displays. The rebuilt site had its own Layout Builder sections and layouts. We wanted to preserve the page elements, their order and as much of their configuration as the new block plugins could still use.

berliner Tue, 09/01/2026 - 17:39

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Droptica: Why Drupal works for structured content operations at scale

Publishing one good page is a writing task. Keeping hundreds of pages accurate across products, markets and languages is a systems problem.

Drupal content operations at scale means treating each fact as structured data with relationships, permissions and history, then reusing it across templates, languages, JSON-LD and APIs. Here is how fields, taxonomy, Views and workflows keep large Drupal sites governable when AI-assisted research raises the bar.

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The work that just happens: the DA Insider for August 2026

This post is adapted from the DA Insider, the Drupal Association's monthly newsletter. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox each month.

Straight from Ryan's desk

To the Drupal community,

As northern hemisphere summer winds down, DrupalCon Rotterdam is rapidly approaching — and if you haven't booked yet, today is your last chance at Regular pricing. Late Rate kicks in at midnight CEST, so this is my friendly nudge to save yourself €270 and register now.

Rotterdam isn't the only Con on the horizon. DrupalCon Orlando Early Bird registration opens 14 September, and paid Early Bird tickets come with a limited-edition DrupalCon elePHPant — once they're gone, they're gone.

Elsewhere in this edition: the 2026 Drupal Business Survey is open until 7 September (your answers shape where we focus next), the engineering teamhas completed the migration of Drupal's security issue tracking to GitLab, and we're delighted to welcome Janna Malikova to the Drupal Association Board.

As always, thanks for being part of it. See you in Rotterdam!

Ryan Witcombe, Director, Product Marketing

The 2026 Drupal Business Survey Is Open

Your input shapes an anonymized report that helps the whole community. You'll see how your pipelines, win rates, and revenues compare to global peer data, share what's actually working, and directly influence where the Drupal Association focuses next.

Take the survey by 7 September 2026 at 23:59 UTC. Responses are strictly confidential and fully anonymized. Everyone who completes the survey receives the full report by email.

DrupalCon Rotterdam is almost here

Join Drupal experts and community members to discover what’s next for Drupal and the open web, exchange ideas, and build connections across the ecosystem in Rotterdam from 28 September to 1 October.

The regular rate is now closed, but registration for DrupalCon Rotterdam 2026 is still open. Register here.

All You Need To Know About DrupalCon Orlando

Early Bird Registration Opens September 14

The Early Bird registration for DrupalCon Orlando 2027 opens Monday, 14 September 2026 at 8:00 am EST, with tickets available for $650. And Early Bird comes with a special perk. Paid Early Bird DrupalCon tickets include a limited-edition DrupalCon PHP elePHPant named Drupy (Elephpas hypertextus drupalensis primus in Latin), available exclusively during the Early Bird registration period.

Free tickets do not include an elePHPant, but you'll have the option to purchase one during registration while supplies are available.

Summits & Training

Kick off DrupalCon Orlando on Monday, 22 March 2027 with a full day of deeper learning and industry-specific discussions, all available as add-ons to your registration.

Summits (Add-on $350)

Choose from six summits tailored to your interests: AI · Government · Higher Education · Nonprofit · Healthcare · Community.

Two summits with special pricing: the Community Summit is free for all DrupalCon registrants, and the Nonprofit Summit is free for Nonprofit ticket holders.

Full-Day Training (Add-on $550)

One focused training on offer: AI Inside Drupal: From Smart Editorial Workflows to Canvas Agents That Build Pages, presented by DrupalEasy.

Community Party + The First-Ever DrupalCon Talent Show

Save the Tuesday night, 23 March 2027, for the DrupalCon Community Party, featuring something brand new for Orlando: the first-ever DrupalCon Talent Show!

It's FREE, and opting in helps us plan for everyone who wants to join us Tuesday night.

More details are coming soon.

Call for Speakers Is Still Open

There's still time to help shape the DrupalCon Orlando 2027 program! We're accepting speaker submissions through 20 October 2026.

Submit your DrupalCon Orlando session.

Where In The World Is Bytes?

Bytes the Gator is making his way around the Drupal community and you can join the fun for a chance to win a free registration to DrupalCon Orlando 2027. Can't attend a Drupal event or find Bytes? Another alligator works too, preferably not a live one!

Meet Bytes and learn how to enter the mascot contest.

The Engineering Team Has Been Busy

This month the team completed the migration of Drupal's security issue tracking to git.drupalcode.org, making the volunteer Security Team faster and easier to grow.

The broader issue migration now covers 90,000+ issues across 7,200+ projects. Release packages were re-signed for 3,200+ projects through Rugged, our new package signing pipeline.

localize.drupal.org and jobs.drupal.org have moved to modern cloud infrastructure, and the Drupal 11 upgrade of the new Drupal.org platform is underway.

Next up: porting community events to new.drupal.org so we can retire groups.drupal.org.

The Drupal Association At-Large Board Election Winner Is Announced

We are excited to announce the winner of 2026 Community At-Large Board Elections. We would like to congratulate and welcome our newest board member, Janna Malikova, for winning the community-elected seat.

We are grateful to Alejandro Moreno for their service and dedication to Drupal and the community, and to all the candidates who applied this year. Read the full announcement here.

This roundup is adapted from the DA Insider, the Drupal Association's monthly newsletter. Want it in your inbox? Subscribe to email communications and browse previous editions.

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Drupal Association blog: The work that just happens: the DA Insider for August 2026

This post is adapted from the DA Insider, the Drupal Association's monthly newsletter. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox each month.

Straight from Ryan's desk

To the Drupal community,

As northern hemisphere summer winds down, DrupalCon Rotterdam is rapidly approaching — and if you haven't booked yet, today is your last chance at Regular pricing. Late Rate kicks in at midnight CEST, so this is my friendly nudge to save yourself €270 and register now.

Rotterdam isn't the only Con on the horizon. DrupalCon Orlando Early Bird registration opens 14 September, and paid Early Bird tickets come with a limited-edition DrupalCon elePHPant — once they're gone, they're gone.

Elsewhere in this edition: the 2026 Drupal Business Survey is open until 7 September (your answers shape where we focus next), the engineering teamhas completed the migration of Drupal's security issue tracking to GitLab, and we're delighted to welcome Janna Malikova to the Drupal Association Board.

As always, thanks for being part of it. See you in Rotterdam!

Ryan Witcombe, Director, Product Marketing

The 2026 Drupal Business Survey Is Open

Your input shapes an anonymized report that helps the whole community. You'll see how your pipelines, win rates, and revenues compare to global peer data, share what's actually working, and directly influence where the Drupal Association focuses next.

Take the survey by 7 September 2026 at 23:59 UTC. Responses are strictly confidential and fully anonymized. Everyone who completes the survey receives the full report by email.

DrupalCon Rotterdam is almost here

Join Drupal experts and community members to discover what’s next for Drupal and the open web, exchange ideas, and build connections across the ecosystem in Rotterdam from 28 September to 1 October.

The regular rate is now closed, but registration for DrupalCon Rotterdam 2026 is still open. Register here.

All You Need To Know About DrupalCon Orlando

Early Bird Registration Opens September 14

The Early Bird registration for DrupalCon Orlando 2027 opens Monday, 14 September 2026 at 8:00 am EST, with tickets available for $650. And Early Bird comes with a special perk. Paid Early Bird DrupalCon tickets include a limited-edition DrupalCon PHP elePHPant named Drupy (Elephpas hypertextus drupalensis primus in Latin), available exclusively during the Early Bird registration period.

Free tickets do not include an elePHPant, but you'll have the option to purchase one during registration while supplies are available.

Summits & Training

Kick off DrupalCon Orlando on Monday, 22 March 2027 with a full day of deeper learning and industry-specific discussions, all available as add-ons to your registration.

Summits (Add-on $350)

Choose from six summits tailored to your interests: AI · Government · Higher Education · Nonprofit · Healthcare · Community.

Two summits with special pricing: the Community Summit is free for all DrupalCon registrants, and the Nonprofit Summit is free for Nonprofit ticket holders.

Full-Day Training (Add-on $550)

One focused training on offer: AI Inside Drupal: From Smart Editorial Workflows to Canvas Agents That Build Pages, presented by DrupalEasy.

Community Party + The First-Ever DrupalCon Talent Show

Save the Tuesday night, 23 March 2027, for the DrupalCon Community Party, featuring something brand new for Orlando: the first-ever DrupalCon Talent Show!

It's FREE, and opting in helps us plan for everyone who wants to join us Tuesday night.

More details are coming soon.

Call for Speakers Is Still Open

There's still time to help shape the DrupalCon Orlando 2027 program! We're accepting speaker submissions through 20 October 2026.

Submit your DrupalCon Orlando session.

Where In The World Is Bytes?

Bytes the Gator is making his way around the Drupal community and you can join the fun for a chance to win a free registration to DrupalCon Orlando 2027. Can't attend a Drupal event or find Bytes? Another alligator works too, preferably not a live one!

Meet Bytes and learn how to enter the mascot contest.

The Engineering Team Has Been Busy

This month the team completed the migration of Drupal's security issue tracking to git.drupalcode.org, making the volunteer Security Team faster and easier to grow.

The broader issue migration now covers 90,000+ issues across 7,200+ projects. Release packages were re-signed for 3,200+ projects through Rugged, our new package signing pipeline.

localize.drupal.org and jobs.drupal.org have moved to modern cloud infrastructure, and the Drupal 11 upgrade of the new Drupal.org platform is underway.

Next up: porting community events to new.drupal.org so we can retire groups.drupal.org.

The Drupal Association At-Large Board Election Winner Is Announced

We are excited to announce the winner of 2026 Community At-Large Board Elections. We would like to congratulate and welcome our newest board member, Janna Malikova, for winning the community-elected seat.

We are grateful to Alejandro Moreno for their service and dedication to Drupal and the community, and to all the candidates who applied this year. Read the full announcement here.

This roundup is adapted from the DA Insider, the Drupal Association's monthly newsletter. Want it in your inbox? Subscribe to email communications and browse previous editions.

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Specbee: Canvas Page Metatag Module: How to restore full SEO controls to Drupal Canvas pages

Drupal Canvas hides most Metatag fields behind one SEO title box. Check out how Canvas Page Metatag restores them and fixes a Robots checkbox bug. read more

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Gspikes: The Complete Drupal 7 → Drupal 11 Migration Checklist: 52 Steps, In Order

Every Drupal 7 to Drupal 11 migration we run follows the same 52 steps in the same order — audit, content model, module mapping, the 301 map, build, verification, and a cutover designed so rollback is one DNS change away. The full checklist, with the reasoning behind each step and a printable summary card. read more

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Freelock Blog: Drupal Meets Matrix part 1: Setting up Matrix API

Drupal Meets Matrix part 1: Setting up Matrix API

John Locke Mon, 08/31/2026 - 14:30

I've been maintaining the matrix_api module on Drupal.org since 2016, nearly a decade of it doing one thing well: posting Drupal events into a Matrix room. This year that changed.

Dev Corner

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Omega8.cc: Pull Your Site into DDEV

Reproducing a bug that only happens on the live Drupal site used to mean a hand-made dump, the uploads copied across one rsync at a time, and an hour of persuading the copy it is not production. On a BOA-hosted site it is one pull into the DDEV project you already have: a small add-on reads what the site reports about itself, sets the local project to the same PHP and Drupal version and the same docroot, then brings the database and the uploads down through the ordinary limited shell account you already use for SFTP, with the key you already have, and nothing new switched on server-side. It syncs one way only, on purpose, and the site's own Drush takes over once the copy is yours. Self-hosters get the other door: the whole stack on a spare VM at a private hostname, no public IP, no DNS, the same BOA as production. This post is the recipe, six commands from start to Pull succeeded, plus the small print neither door hides. read more

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A Drupal Couple: Drupal could be a great answer for vibe coding

Drupal could be a great answer for vibe coding

Imagen

When you vibe an application, the AI picks the stack, and both projects I've looked at came back with the same one. I know Drupal and I contribute to it, so weigh everything here against that bias. But what a vibe-coded application ends up needing, Drupal already has, and the piece still missing is one this community could build. There may be better fits out there. This one is mine.

Imagen

Carlos

Ospina

·

Technical Account Manager / Drupal Advisor

Mon, 08/31/2026 - 12:54

what is next in the AI era

Add new comment

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The Drop Times: When Websites Become Interfaces for Machines

AI assistants increasingly sit between people and websites, retrieving and interpreting information on their behalf. That shifts the problem beyond whether software can connect to a site at all. The system also has to make clear what information means, what software may access, and which rules govern what happens next.

The Drupal AI Initiative made the first part of that problem explicit on 24 August 2026. Fields, taxonomy, relationships, metadata, and other forms of structured content can give software information that is easier to identify and interpret than meaning conveyed mainly through page design. Permissions and workflows add another layer by distinguishing what is public, restricted, current, or subject to editorial control.

A more concrete access boundary appeared this week in Acquia DAM's MCP Server. Compatible AI assistants can search assets, retrieve metadata, and obtain links through an authenticated connection that follows the user's existing DAM permissions. The initial implementation is read-only: an assistant can retrieve permitted information but cannot edit metadata or upload files. The interface therefore exposes capability without giving the software unrestricted authority over the system behind it.

GovCMS addresses a different machine-readable problem. On 27 August 2026, Rules as Code became a production capability on the platform, allowing policy, legislation, and business rules to be represented as reusable digital assets and embedded in digital services. Its first production implementation is an eligibility checker for agencies considering GovCMS, and the underlying eligibility rules are also published as open source. GovCMS describes the approach as a foundation for future AI-assisted services rather than as an AI-agent implementation today.

These developments are not three versions of the same architecture. They expose three related requirements for systems that software increasingly has to interpret or use: meaning must be explicit, access must be constrained, and important rules should not have to be guessed from prose. For Drupal teams, the agentic web may therefore depend as much on long-standing work around content modelling, permissions, auditability, and governance as it does on new AI capabilities.

Follow The DropTimes on LinkedIn, X, Bluesky, and Facebook, or join #thedroptimes on Drupal Slack.

This issue of Editor’s Pick was written and curated by Allen Jason.

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Acquia.com - Drupal Blog: Two Keynotes, One Question: Building Through Disruption at Drupal GovCon

Two Drupal GovCon keynotes on building through disruption: the courage to lead change, and the care to keep people from being left behind. read more

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The Drupal Association Announces 2026 Board Election Winner

The Drupal Association is excited to announce the winner of 2026 Community At-Large Board Elections.

We extend a sincere thank you to Alejandro Moreno for his service and dedication, not only to Drupal, but to the Drupal community. Your time spent on the board made such a difference to the future of the Drupal project, and we thank you all for participating with grace, thoughtfulness, and insightful contributions.

We would like to congratulate and welcome our newest board member, Janna Malikova, for winning the community-elected seat during our 2026 At-Large Board Elections.

We cannot wait to see all the amazing things Janna will accomplish while on the Drupal Association Board.

Detailed Voting Results

There were 8 candidates in this year’s At-Large board member election. 307 voters cast their ballots out of a pool of 1274 eligible voters. Eligible voters are active Drupal Association members, known as Ripple Makers, whose membership must have been active at least 24 hours before voting opened.

Under Approval Voting, each eligible voter can give a vote to one or more candidates.

The final total of votes were as follows:

Candidate	Votes
Scott Falconer	74
James Abrahams	131
Bert Boerland	120
Chris Kelly	26
Darren Oh	57
Janna Malikova	141
Helge Notø	74
Matthew Saunders	128

On behalf of all the staff and board of the Drupal Association, a heartfelt Drupal Thanks to all of you who stood for the elections this year. It truly is a big commitment to contribution, the Drupal Association, and the community, and we are so grateful for all of your voices. Thank you for your willingness to serve, and we hope you’ll consider participating again in 2027!

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Drupal Association blog: The Drupal Association Announces 2026 Board Election Winner

The Drupal Association is excited to announce the winner of 2026 Community At-Large Board Elections.

We extend a sincere thank you to Alejandro Moreno for his service and dedication, not only to Drupal, but to the Drupal community. Your time spent on the board made such a difference to the future of the Drupal project, and we thank you all for participating with grace, thoughtfulness, and insightful contributions.

We would like to congratulate and welcome our newest board member, Janna Malikova, for winning the community-elected seat during our 2026 At-Large Board Elections.

We cannot wait to see all the amazing things Janna will accomplish while on the Drupal Association Board.

Detailed Voting Results

There were 8 candidates in this year’s At-Large board member election. 307 voters cast their ballots out of a pool of 1274 eligible voters. Eligible voters are active Drupal Association members, known as Ripple Makers, whose membership must have been active at least 24 hours before voting opened.

Under Approval Voting, each eligible voter can give a vote to one or more candidates.

The final total of votes were as follows:

Candidate	Votes
Scott Falconer	74
James Abrahams	131
Bert Boerland	120
Chris Kelly	26
Darren Oh	57
Janna Malikova	141
Helge Notø	74
Matthew Saunders	128

On behalf of all the staff and board of the Drupal Association, a heartfelt Drupal Thanks to all of you who stood for the elections this year. It truly is a big commitment to contribution, the Drupal Association, and the community, and we are so grateful for all of your voices. Thank you for your willingness to serve, and we hope you’ll consider participating again in 2027!

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Specbee: Specbee is now a Drupal AI Initiative Partner. What does it mean for your platform?

Specbee has joined the Drupal AI Initiative as a Certified Partner. See what Drupal AI initiative is about, how it's governed, and what it means for your enterprise site. read more

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#! code: Drupal 11: Migrating From Jadu Into LocalGov Drupal: Part 3

Drupal 11: Migrating From Jadu Into LocalGov Drupal: Part 3

This is the second article in a series looking at migrating from Jadu into a LocalGov Drupal (LGD) site for the Central Bedfordshire site. In the first article we looked at the Jadu API and setting things up so that we could make calls to the API and parse the XML data using the migration systems available.

In the second article we looked at reproducing Jadu URLs to create redirects for migrated content, even though the Jadu API doesn't contain any URL information.

Now that we have a the Jadu connection created and redirects working we can start tackling other aspects of the migration, so let's look at migrating the main content of the site from Jadu. We can pull structured pages of content out of the Jadu API and apply them to the structure of a LGD site, maintaining the same hierarchical structure and order of pages.

Much of the content of a LGD site is built using just a handful of content types, and Central Bedfordshire was built in the same way. LGD comes with a number of content types that allow content editors to add content in different ways, which allows for some decent customisation in the structure and layout of a site. Not only that, but as we are using Drupal it is possible to customise this structure as much as we need to suit the needs of the site.

For Central Bedfordshire, we had the standard structure of the site built with Service Landing pages, which gave editors the ability to link out to other pages that contained all of the content. These inner pages were set up as Guide pages, and the migration of that content is what we will be focusing on in this article. Please note that I will need to gloss over a little bit of the detail in this article, but rest assured that the source code will be available soon.

philipnorton42 Sun, 08/30/2026 - 20:02 read more

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Omega8.cc: BOA's Baby Pictures

Four version control systems in three files, a hardcoded root password we decided not to airbrush, and a surprising amount of today's stack already in place. In the oldest corner of our static file mirrors sits a directory called alpha3, and in it three shell scripts dated 20 November 2009 – older than the public BOA repository itself, whose GitHub history only starts in January 2010. These are the scripts Barracuda & Octopus grew from: one installs the Ægir layer on a VPS, one upgrades it with cron stopped and a backup taken first, and one builds a whole menu of 2009-era Drupal platforms, from Open Atrium to ManagingNews. Now published byte for byte on our docs site, with a guided tour of what survived, from the /data/disk tree to the /dev/ delivery path. read more

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Mike Herchel's Blog: It’s time to prepare your Drupal modules for Admin’s dark mode

It’s time to prepare your Drupal modules for Admin’s dark mode mherchel Fri, 08/28/2026 - 12:04 read more

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Webpro Company blog: WebMCP and MCP: what is the difference and when should a website use each?

WebMCP is an emerging proposal for cooperation between a web page and a browser agent. It is not a new name for MCP and it is not a replacement. A practical rule is simple: MCP belongs near servers and data; WebMCP belongs near the live page and the workflow the user can see. At the end of August 2026, WebMCP is not something every production website should rush into every form. But it is worth understanding now, because the direction is right: an AI agent should not have to guess buttons and click through a website like a brittle automation script. A web application can declare which actions an agent may use and what structured inputs those actions expect. That distinction matters. A normal browser agent sees a page roughly as a user or automation tool sees it: headings, form fields,… read more

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Talking Drupal: Talking Drupal #567 - Common Vulnerabilities & Exposures

Today we are talking about Security, Vulnerabilities, and how to avoid exposure with guest Dave Welch. We'll also cover Security Scanner as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/567

Topics

What Are CVEs
CVE Lifecycle and Disclosure
AI Era Security Challenges
What CVE Program Excludes
Patch Fast Reality
Global Security Signals
CVE Timing Judgment
KEV Flags Explained
CVE Updates Link Rot
Who Decides CVE
Sneaky Patch Dangers
ADP Program Fixes
Small Team Triage
Vulnerability Tsunami AI
Autonomous Security Future
Legal Pressure Budgets

Resources

Guests

David Welch - github: dwelch2344 dwelch2344

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi JD Flynn - dorficus

MOTW Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

Brief description:
- Have you ever wanted a fast way to catch the security mistakes that slip into custom Drupal code — especially the code your AI assistant just wrote — before it ships? There's a module for that.
Module name/project name:
- Security Scanner
Brief history
- How old: created in July 2026 by Mayank Gupta (mayankguptadotcom) of Acquia
- Versions available: 1.0.0, which works with Drupal 10.3 and 11
Maintainership
- Actively maintained — created and shipped its first stable this summer, with steady development right through late July
- Security coverage
- Test coverage — and it's strong: unit and kernel tests, including a regression corpus built from real Drupal core advisories
- Documentation? In-depth README with a full check table and CI recipes, plus a CHANGELOG
- Number of open issues: 1 issue, not a bug
Usage stats:
- 2 sites (it's brand new)
Module features and usage
- Provide a Drush command, has no UI — you point drush security:scan at a module or any path, it reads the code statically, and prints a prioritized, OWASP-mapped list of things to review
- It's built for the age of AI-written code — the checks target the classes AI assistants keep reintroducing: routes with no access check, #markup and |raw XSS, missing CSRF tokens, unserialize() on untrusted data, hardcoded secrets
- Then there's an optional deep pass: with the Psalm static analysis scanning engine installed, it'll trace untrusted input across functions and files to catch cross-function issues. And it's honest about state — the report always says whether that deep pass ran, was skipped, or failed, so a failure never gets mistaken for a clean scan
- One nice detail under the hood: a tokenizer-backed "code map" that knows whether a match is real code, a comment, or a string — so it won't flag the word "unserialize" sitting in a doc comment. That kills the single biggest source of false positives
- The checks are regression-tested against real Drupal advisories (Drupalgeddon, Drupalgeddon2, the 2019 unserialize bug, etc) so a pattern that caused an actual CVE can't quietly come back in your custom code
- Output comes in three flavors: a readable table, JSON for CI and AI agents, and SARIF — which means findings show up as annotations right on your GitHub or GitLab merge-request diff instead of buried in a job log
- For adopting it on an existing codebase there's a baseline file — you fingerprint the findings you've reviewed, with a required reason on each, and they stop failing the build but never go invisible; every run still counts them
- It exits non-zero on error-level findings, so it drops straight into CI or a pre-commit hook
- And it's extensible — checks are Drupal plugins with a #[SecurityCheck] attribute, so any module can add its own or alter the ones that ship
- Big caveat, and the module says this itself: a finding means "review this," not "this is broken." Static analysis has false positives, and a clean scan doesn't prove the code is secure — access-control logic especially still needs human review
- I first heard about this module over beverages at Drupalcamp Asheville, so I know that this module was largely vibe-coded, after having an AI agent ingest every single Drupal security team CVE. So I like to think of this module as security pattern recognition tool, but of course it does even more

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Dries Buytaert: Open Source is a cost-allocation system

Open Source is usually described as a licensing model, a development model, or a production model. All three descriptions are useful, but they leave something out. Every Open Source ecosystem is also a cost-allocation system.

Keeping software relevant and dependable requires people to write code, review contributions, prepare releases, investigate security reports, operate infrastructure, write documentation, answer questions, and support upgrades and migrations. Someone always bears those costs.

A proprietary vendor can tie access to payment: every license or subscription sold helps fund developers, security work, infrastructure, and releases.

Open Source breaks the link between access and payment. Anyone can redistribute the software at any price, including zero. Payment is therefore not a condition of using or redistributing it, and those rights do not themselves provide a durable mechanism for funding production and maintenance.

But separating payment from access does not make the costs disappear. Costs are distributed across maintainers, employers, foundations, sponsors, and users. A maintainer may volunteer their time. An employer may pay a developer to contribute. A foundation may operate infrastructure.

Because these costs are distributed rather than collected through a single transaction, they are harder to see and harder to fund.

Technical choices often shape where those costs fall. That allocation is not always deliberate; it can emerge slowly from decisions that were individually reasonable and become visible only years later.

Drupal's update service recently gave me a good example. Drupal sites periodically contact updates.drupal.org to ask whether new versions of Drupal or any installed add-ons are available. Drupal calls these add-ons "contributed projects", such as modules and themes maintained by members of the community.

The current design sends one request for Drupal itself and one for every contributed project installed on the site. A site with 100 contributed projects therefore makes 101 requests each time it checks for updates, by default, once a day.

There were good reasons for that design. Each project's release history could be stored as a static file and served repeatedly without rebuilding it for every request. The design was straightforward, and it worked.

But Drupal grew. Today, updates.drupal.org serves nearly a billion requests a month. The file containing Drupal Core's release history is roughly half a megabyte by itself. Based on the number of requests for that file, I estimate that Drupal Core update checks alone may account for roughly 50 to 75 TB of data transfer each month. Traffic for contributed projects comes on top of that.

No one chose to make updates.drupal.org transfer tens of terabytes of release data each month. That scale emerged gradually as Drupal grew, from a design that had been reasonable when the ecosystem was smaller.

Part of the challenge is that, in Open Source, the people who benefit, the people who decide, and the people who bear the costs are often different and may have no formal obligations to one another.

Site owners benefit from reliable update notifications, usually without paying the Drupal Association for them. Drupal Association staff operate the update service, while the Association bears its traffic and infrastructure costs. But the code that determines how sites make those requests lives in Drupal Core, where changes require the involvement of Core committers. The Core committers do not report to the Drupal Association, so the Association cannot change that behavior on its own.

In practice, Drupal Association staff and Core committers collaborate closely. That collaboration is important because decision-making authority and cost-bearing sit with different groups.

The people bearing material costs need a way to make those costs visible and influence the decision, even if they do not control it.

This example shows why every Open Source architecture is also a cost-allocation system. Good governance considers that allocation up front, monitors its effects over time, and revisits it when it becomes unsustainable.

Understanding an Open Source system therefore requires more than understanding its code or license. We also need to understand who benefits, who decides, and who bears the costs as the system grows. Once those relationships are visible, a community can decide whether the allocation is sustainable or whether the architecture should change.

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LakeDrops Drupal Consulting, Development and Hosting: Six Small ECA Models That Make Drupal Editors Happy

Six Small ECA Models That Make Drupal Editors Happy

Jürgen Haas Thu 27 Aug 2026 - 17:30

This article introduces six new ECA Guide library recipes that improve the Drupal content editing experience through small, focused changes. They can draft metadata on first save, add access-aware edit links to teasers, prevent invalid dependent select values, offer field-level actions, fill several form fields without saving, and show contextual guidance beside a form. The point is not to apply all six recipes unchanged. They are well-architected starting points for a real editorial irritation. For editors, that means less repeated work and fewer avoidable mistakes. For organisations, it means more consistent content and a practical route to improving the CMS without turning every detail into a custom development project. The article also gives a simple choice: Field Widget Actions for one field, Form API Ajax for several form fields, and HTMX endpoints for nearby content. Production concerns still matter, especially permissions, validation, managed data, and AI review.

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Berliners blog: Rebuilding a data-driven Drupal site: From ctools plugins to Layout Builder blocks

Rebuilding a data-driven Drupal site: From ctools plugins to Layout Builder blocks

In the previous post, I described why we chose Layout Builder and how Layout Builder IPE restored the frontend editing workflow we had used with Panels IPE.

With the editing workflow in place, we still had to rebuild the elements that editors placed on their pages.

The Drupal 7 site used custom ctools content type plugins for maps, charts, figures, lists and tables. Editors placed and configured these plugins, while the plugins retrieved the information and rendered the result. I will call both these ctools plugins and the block plugins that replaced them page elements.

berliner Thu, 08/27/2026 - 15:06

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Specbee: 16 Drupal AI modules that can make your website smarter

We rounded up 16 Drupal AI modules and sorted them for you. Deploy now, pilot on staging, or just keep an eye on it. Check it out! read more

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DDEV Blog: DDEV August 2026: Star Us on GitHub, PhpStorm Plugin Comes Home

Help DDEV Grow: Star Us on GitHub

If you use DDEV, a simple way to mention the project is to star the GitHub repository. Head over to github.com/ddev/ddev↗ and click Star. It takes five seconds, and it can help us — a star count is one of the things new users, sponsors, and and AI check before trusting an open source tool. If you're already a star, thank you!

DDEV IntelliJ/PhpStorm Plugin Lands in the DDEV Org

The DDEV Integration plugin for IntelliJ/PhpStorm↗, maintained by @AkibaAT, has been transferred into the ddev GitHub organization. This was on our 2026 plans list, and it's great to see it land. Awesome maintainer AkibaAT has kept the plugin in excellent shape, and this move gives it a permanent home alongside the rest of the DDEV ecosystem.

What's New on the Blog

A Love Letter to the DDEV Community → Randy on what the DDEV community — real feedback, hard questions, generous contributions, genuine collaboration — makes this project what it is.
Shopware on DDEV: notes from years of client projects → Benny Poensgen on why DDEV and Shopware fit together, from a first onboarding to conclusions drawn over years of agency practice.
Umbraco on DDEV: .NET, SQL Server, and the generic project type → Lee Mills on running Umbraco CMS and .NET 10 under DDEV's generic project type, with a custom web image and Azure SQL Edge.

Community Highlights

Knecht.works Ships Sandbox Rollback — Following up on last month's beta-tester call, the team at knecht.works has added sandbox rollback to their agency dashboard, letting each automated DDEV run boot into its own disposable environment. Read the update↗

TYPO3 Snapshot: Pull and Anonymize Production Data Locally — Ramon Herrmann released Snapshot, an open-source TYPO3 extension that pulls databases and fileadmin from live/staging into a local DDEV environment, with built-in anonymization for GDPR compliance. Read the announcement↗

Quick DDEV Previews: A Self-Hosted Preview Service — Matthias Andrasch built a proof-of-concept service that spins up DDEV preview environments from any branch of a connected GitHub repository, based on Samuel Reichör's technical work. Screencast: Using it on Hetzner VPS↗ • View the repo↗

Community Tutorials from Around the Web

Migrating a Local WordPress Site to DDEV on Windows/WSL2 (Spanish) → Adam Martín walks through moving a WordPress project from Local to DDEV running inside WSL2, including database import, URL fixes, SSL certificates, and troubleshooting port conflicts. Read on dev.adammartin.es↗
Installing DDEV on Linux (French) → An updated walkthrough covering Docker prerequisites and DDEV installation on Ubuntu/Debian, Fedora, and openSUSE, plus mkcert certificate setup. Read on kgaut.net↗
Global Commands for Database Dumps and Remote Imports (French) → ddev db-import and ddev db-export, a pair of global DDEV commands for restoring and exporting Drupal databases with drush cache-clear and login-link steps built-in, plus a follow-up set (db-prod-import, ssh-prod, and their preprod equivalents) for pulling a remote database in one step, packaged as the ddev-drupal-tools↗ add-on. Read the first post↗ • Read the follow-up↗
DDEV + a-blogcms as a MAMP Alternative (Japanese) → An introduction to DDEV for a-blogcms developers used to MAMP, covering setup, useful commands, and Mailpit for email testing. Read on kazumich.com↗
Running Drupal's GitLab CI Checks Locally → How Kalamuna's ddev checks and ddev checks-fixes commands mirror the Drupal.org GitLab CI template, so code that passes locally passes in CI. Read on kalamuna.com↗

DDEV Training Starting Up Again This Fall

Live training is back for the fall, three sessions open to everybody.

Upcoming DDEV Live Contributor and User Training Sessions

September 23, 2026 at 8:00 AM US Mountain / 10:00 AM US Eastern / 16:00 CEST — Managing Huge Databases with DDEV, with Moshe Weitzman
Covers the new embedded snapshot and uncompressed snapshot features shipping in the upcoming v1.25.4 DDEV release.
Add to Google Calendar • Download .ics
October 21, 2026 at 8:00 AM US Mountain / 10:00 AM US Eastern / 16:00 CEST — Shopware with DDEV, with Benny Poensgen
A look at running Shopware on DDEV, from Benny's earlier post on the blog.
Add to Google Calendar • Download .ics
November 11, 2026 at 8:00 AM US Mountain / 10:00 AM US Eastern / 16:00 CET — Advanced Coder.ddev.com Techniques
Using the coder CLI, local and web-based VS Code, and remote-controlling Claude, including the freeform template.
Add to Google Calendar • Download .ics

Zoom Join Info:
Link: Join Zoom Meeting
Passcode: 12345

Events & Community

DrupalCamp Tokyo 2026 — ANNAI presented on AI-driven Drupal development and sustainable open-source CMS strategy, including using DDEV with git worktree to run parallel Drupal environments. Read the report↗ (Japanese) — for English coverage of git worktree with DDEV, see Contributor Training: git worktree for Multiple DDEV Projects and Using git worktree with TYPO3.

Governance

The next DDEV advisory group meeting, open to everybody, is September 2, 2026 at 8:00 AM US Mountain / 10:00 AM US Eastern / 16:00 CEST. Add to Google Calendar • See the agenda. We love to hear from our community!

Sponsorship Update

A steady month — thank you to everyone who contributes!

July 2026: ~$9,931/month (82.8% of goal)

August 2026: ~$10,038/month (83.7% of goal)

If DDEV has helped your team, consider sponsoring. → 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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Your next website visitor might not be human

For most of the web’s history, we have designed digital experiences around a simple assumption: a person will visit our website. That person might arrive through a search engine, follow a campaign link, scan a QR code, or maybe even type the URL into their browser.

AI is changing that... dramatically and rapidly!

People are now asking AI assistants to research products, compare services, explain policies, recommend suppliers and complete tasks on their behalf. Sometimes, they might not even consciously choose AI and are simply guided by seemingly familiar tools like Google 'AI Overviews'. Either way, instead of visiting ten websites, a customer may ask one assistant to gather the relevant information and present a recommendation.

In the near future, that AI assistant could be doing more than reading a web page: checking product availability, requesting information, preparing an application, arranging an appointment or even completing a transaction.

Your next website visitor may not be a person at all, but an AI agent acting on their behalf, which raises a serious question:

Can AI systems understand our organisation, trust our information and interact with our services safely?

Getting to know your new audience

To be useful, AI assistants need to find the right information, understand its meaning and decide whether it is current and trustworthy.

A prospective student asking an assistant to compare courses across several universities, a buyer requesting a shortlist of products that meet detailed technical, ethical and budget requirements - both are now part of your website’s audience.

While human visitors use navigation, page layouts, graphic cues and calls to action, AI systems depend more heavily on structured information, descriptive metadata, clear relationships and reliable access to data.

Your web pages may look perfectly clear to a person but remain ambiguous to a machine. For example, a human might understand from the design that one contact address is intended for media enquiries, and another is for customer enquiries, but an AI assistant may not interpret it correctly unless it’s represented clearly in the underlying content structure.

The content management decisions you make today will shape how accurately they are represented by AI tomorrow.

Being visible is not the same as being understood

Many organisations are currently focused on whether their content appears in AI-generated answers. That is important, but visibility is only one part of the problem.

An AI system also needs to understand:

What the organisation offers
Which information is authoritative
When the information was last reviewed
Which products, services or locations it relates to
Whether regional or language differences apply
What actions can be taken
Which information is public and which is restricted

Without this context, AI assistants may rely on outdated pages, confuse similar services or combine information that was never intended to be used together.

Preparing for AI visitors therefore requires more than content. It requires a well-structured and reliably governed source of truth.

Drupal gives content meaning

Drupal treats content as structured information rather than a collection of web pages. A university course, for example, could have defined fields for qualification, fees and application route, rather than burying them in a block of text. That structure is what makes the same content usable well beyond a single page.

For a human visitor, Drupal assembles that information into an attractive and accessible page. For an AI visitor, the same structure makes the information easier to identify, compare and reuse.

You don't need to maintain one version of content for people and another for machines because Drupal allows the same governed content to serve websites, applications, search services and AI agents.

Drupal can become the trusted source behind AI answers

AI systems are powerful, but they are only as dependable as the information and context available to them. The idea of autonomous agents can quickly become uncomfortable when governance is treated as an afterthought: what happens if an agent uses sensitive information, makes an unsuitable change, or you simply can't tell why an action occurred?

Drupal can provide a controlled source of organisational knowledge. Its content model, taxonomy and relationship system describe what information means, not simply where it appears on a page, helping an AI assistant distinguish a current policy from an archived one, or a general contact address from a specialist enquiry route.

The Drupal AI ecosystem is developing capabilities to support this level of governance, including guardrails for requests and responses, observability and activity logging, controlled access to organisational context, provider-independent integrations, and human review and approval workflows.

This is especially valuable for large or complex digital estates, where information is created by multiple departments across different languages and regions.Drupal's advanced AI implementation and integration does not negate all risk from AI usage, but it does give you a stronger foundation for identifying and managing it

Put simply, AI makes content governance essential to digital communication.

Hi, I'm a machine, please can I come in?

Making content understandable is the first step. The next is enabling controlled action

Giving an AI agent access to your digital platform creates an obvious concern: what will it be allowed to see and do?

Drupal has long supported detailed roles and permissions, allowing different users to view, edit, approve or publish specific types of content.

The same principle can be applied to AI visitors. A useful agent may need to inspect content, search records, or carry out an action, but it should never gain unrestricted access to your systems, or expose private content simply because that content exists in the same system. It should only be able to access the information and tools permitted for the person, service or task it represents.

The Drupal AI Initiative organises this work through two connected areas:

Inside AI, which brings AI assistance into Drupal for editors, marketers and site builders
Outside AI, which enables external AI agents and tools to connect to and act on Drupal

This changes the role of the content management system from being a 'human experience engine' to being a governed platform through which people, applications and AI agents can understand and interact with your organisation.

Design for people, prepare for agents

Human visitors are not disappearing. People will continue to value clear information, strong design, accessible services and experiences that feel relevant and trustworthy. However, they will increasingly use AI to navigate and make sense of the vast amount of information available to them.

AI readiness can look like a technology challenge, but an AI system cannot reliably represent your brand if the underlying content is fragmented, duplicated or poorly structured.

The organisations that adapt successfully will not choose between human-centred design and machine-readable content. They will build digital platforms that support both by creating information people can understand, data machines can interpret and processes agents can interact with safely.

Your next website visitor might not be human - will your digital platform know exactly how to help them?

Try Drupal today!

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From Headless CMS to AI Harness: What I Took to Decoupled Days

Article by: Martin Anderson-Clutz. Originally posted on the Acquia blog.

Drupal turns decoupled architecture into a governed AI harness, combining live visual editing with agent-ready content schemas.

Back in March, at EvolveDigital in Toronto, I ran into Preston So. He mentioned that the team behind Decoupled Days was looking for speakers, and that this year the event would be in Montréal. I was interested right away. Drupal Canvas is the most compelling answer I have seen to a problem that has followed decoupled architectures for years, and I wanted that message to reach beyond the Drupal faithful — out to the practitioners who live and breathe headless every day.

The talk I ended up giving was not really about a content management system at all. It was about how Drupal has quietly become something else: a governed harness for artificial intelligence. Here is the argument I made, the demo that seemed to land hardest with the room, and why I think 2026 is the year the trade-offs of going headless finally stop being trade-offs.

Drupal Was Decoupled Before Decoupled Was Cool

Drupal did not arrive late to the headless conversation. Far from it. The community committed to an API-first architecture roughly a decade ago, and a vibrant subcommunity has been refining decoupled patterns ever since. That work produced a spectrum of delivery models rather than a single one: traditional, where Drupal renders everything; progressively decoupled, where a JavaScript front end takes over the parts of the page that benefit from it while editorial preview stays intact; and fully decoupled, where Drupal is a pure API feeding any number of channels.

That range matters, because it means Drupal has never been only a content API. It owns content, delivery, and governance at the same time. The headless-native platforms compete on one of those axes. Drupal competes on all three.

The Headless Bargain, and Why 2026 Voids It

When organizations adopted front-end frameworks like Next.js and Astro, most of them accepted what I think of as the headless bargain. They gained fast front ends and their choice of framework, and in exchange they gave up live visual editing, layout control, and real-time editorial preview. Editors went from composing pages to filling in form fields blind and filing tickets for changes they used to make themselves.

The industry tried to patch around this — bespoke preview services, visual editors bolted onto the front end, what amounted to Storybook pressed into service as a content tool. None of it fully closed the gap.

Drupal Canvas, which shipped as the default editing experience in Drupal CMS 2.0, closes it a different way. It delivers a true-to-life editing workspace where content creators edit layouts live in the browser, and the site still ships as a high-performance decoupled front end. The CMS stopped being the bottleneck and became the conductor. You keep Next.js or Astro, and you get the editorial experience back.

The Bigger Shift: The CMS Became a Harness

Something larger is happening underneath all of this. For most of the last two decades, the job of a CMS was to model content and publish it to channels. Through 2024 and 2025, artificial intelligence showed up inside these platforms as a feature — an assist button in a text box that summarized a paragraph or suggested tags when a human clicked it.

By 2026, that framing is obsolete. Artificial intelligence has become infrastructure rather than an accessory: autonomous agents that run scheduled jobs, batch operations, and real-time triggers. Analysts have adopted new vocabulary to match, from agentic experience platforms to AI-ready content management. Three capabilities now separate a platform that is serious about this from one that is not: the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which lets external agents query and update content through one standard interface; autonomous agents that behave like digital teammates; and answer engine optimization, which structures content so it surfaces accurately inside tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

And the whole category is converging on the same destination. Headless-native platforms like Sanity, Contentstack, and Storyblok others are all racing to add agents, automation, and AI-assisted authoring. When everyone is heading for the same place, the differentiator is no longer whether a platform has AI. It is how that AI is governed and orchestrated.

So What Is an AI Harness?

Even the most capable models today are prone to hallucination, blind to context they are not explicitly given, and easy to push outside the bounds of what an organization would allow. That is why almost no one uses a raw model directly. They use a harness: the code around the model that improves the quality, safety, and reliability of what comes back. A harness augments the query, enforces guardrails on input and output, and adds tools that give the model real capabilities.

Think of your AI model as the engine: the part that makes your reasoning system go. The harness is the vehicle built around it: the controls that point it in the right direction, change gears when the situation calls for it, and bring it to a stop when needed.

If you list what a good AI harness needs — structured content the model can reason over, access control, deterministic workflows, versioned and reviewable configuration, and centralized governance — Drupal has shipped every one of those for years, for reasons that had nothing to do with AI. The model at the center is a commodity. It is swappable, replaceable, and never the true value driver. Everything Drupal wraps around it is the durable part.

Which leads to the line I kept coming back to: what drives the value of intelligent systems is your schema, not your prompt. Prompts are transient. Typed fields, entity relationships, and taxonomy give a model unambiguous ground truth instead of prose it has to guess at. And the same JSON:API structure that feeds your decoupled front end is exactly what an external agent inspects and reasons over. Drupal orchestrates the content and context; the external model supplies the intelligence. That division of labor ages far better than trying to build models in-house.

Where You Actually See It Work

Everything above is architecture. The demo is where it becomes visible, and it is the part of the talk the audience responded to most.

I had set up a demo environment for a fictional company called Inspace. Ahead of time, I populated the Context Control Center with the things a real brand would have on hand: a brand guide, a tone of voice, documentation for a component library I had programmatically migrated from Drupal's Mercury design system into Code Components and synced into Astro, and a set of context items describing a new "Executive Suites" offering that Inspace was preparing to launch.

Then, live, I created a new page in Canvas, opened Canvas AI, and gave it one sentence: generate a landing page for the new Executive Suites offering. It went to work, and while it did, I took questions from the audience. A couple of minutes later it had assembled a full landing page out of real components, populated with relevant, on-brand content. To make the point that a human stays in the loop, I dropped an image from the media library into the hero component and published. Then I switched to the Astro app, navigated to the same path, and there was the identical page — every decision the human and the model had made, rendered by the decoupled front end. A complete landing page, start to finish, in a couple of minutes.

The second beat pushed further. The marketing team wants a brand-new component: a call to action for a waitlist. I asked Canvas AI to build a full-width announcement banner with an announcement pill, a headline, a supporting line, and a primary call to action. After a short pause, the component appeared in the Canvas interface — colors on brand, formatting consistent with the rest of the library — with its code fully visible and editable and a live preview I could resize to check different breakpoints. I noted that in the real world you might refine the code yourself or ask Canvas AI to iterate, then saved it to the library, dragged it into the Executive Suites page, and published.

When I reloaded the Astro app, it threw a fatal error, exactly as I had planned. The layout now referenced a component the front end did not know about. One npx canvas push from the command line synced the components, a refresh brought the page back, and the new banner rendered cleanly in the Astro layout. That deliberate stumble made the architecture legible: content edits flow to the front end instantly, but new component code is a real, versioned artifact that moves through a real workflow.

I closed the demo by going back to the Context Control Center, because that is the intelligence that made the rest possible. This is what AI prompt grounding looks like in practice: before a single token is generated, each request is automatically supplied with the brand voice, domain knowledge, and guardrails relevant to the task at hand. Some context items are global and travel with every request. Others are scoped specifically to working in Canvas. Others still apply only to content about the Executive Suites program. All of them were assembled automatically behind those short prompts — which is why one sentence was enough to get on-brand, relevant output. I finished on the form for managing a single context item, showing the range of ways its use can be scoped and restricted. Compliance before generation, not review after.

Why Enterprises Can Trust It

For regulated and enterprise teams, governance is where this stops being a demo and starts being a decision. Drupal is model-agnostic by design: dozens of providers sit behind one abstraction layer, spanning cloud services like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Gemini as well as self-hosted options like Ollama and Mistral for data sovereignty. Swapping providers is a configuration change, not a rewrite of your schemas or your logic.

Agents act inside Drupal's existing permission model which includes the Access Policy API, so the access logic that already governs your people governs your agents too — no separate guardrail layer to maintain. Deterministic orchestration through the Event-Condition-Action (ECA) or FlowDrop frameworks handle rules-based logic that costs no tokens and never hallucinates, which is a useful reminder that the cheapest, most reliable AI call is often the one you do not make. And because that orchestration lives inside the platform as native state machines — ECA for event-driven rules, Maestro for durable, multi-step approvals — stateful business logic runs where the content lives, rather than being stitched together from external webhooks, serverless functions, and third-party glue code. Guardrails filter sensitive data before it leaves the server, and metering tracks token spend by user and role so finance can see what AI actually costs.

An Honest Read

It doesn't serve anyone to pretend one side wins everything, and I said so in Montréal. The headless-native platforms lead on real things: faster time to value, a cleaner developer experience, and more polished agentic tooling in market today. If those are your priorities right now, they are genuine strengths.

Where Drupal leads is open source with no lock-in and dozens of documented APIs, model-agnostic freedom, deep governance and orchestration, and fit for enterprise, multi-brand, and regulated environments. It is also worth remembering the shape of the thing behind it: an open ecosystem moves at the speed of everyone who needs it to, while a single-vendor roadmap moves at the speed of one company's priorities.

The Takeaway

The way I put it at the end of the talk: we gave up the editorial experience to go headless, and in 2026 we stopped having to. The original headless win is now additive with the editorial win, not traded against it. One structured content model can serve four consumers at once — a decoupled front end, editors in Canvas, internal AI agents, and the wider martech stack over MCP.

Drupal is not a CMS with AI features bolted on. It is a governed AI harness that happens to have been building the right foundations for 20 years. If you want to see it for yourself, start with Drupal CMS 2.0 and Canvas, then explore the AI, context, and MCP modules. For teams that would rather not set up and host Drupal themselves, Acquia Source CMS offers a fully managed on-ramp to the same platform. And if you are ready to help shape where this goes, the Drupal AI Initiative is where the work is happening.

Making that case in Montréal was a highlight of my year. If you were in the room, thank you — the questions were sharp, and a few of them changed how I will explain this next time. If you were not, come find me, and we can pick up where the talk left off.

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MCP from Concept to Demo: An Open Data Example with DKAN - Dan Goodwin (Drupal AI Learners Club)

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A First Look at the DrupalCon Orlando Venue

This is cross-posted from Mike Herchel's blog

A few weeks ago, I met up with some of the DrupalCon Orlando local planning committee at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress Resort to check out the venue and finalize a bunch of plans.

We toured the resort, planned events, sampled food and drinks (strictly for quality assurance, of course), floated around the pools, and spent way too much time talking about all the fun stuff we're putting together.

After seeing everything in person, I'm convinced this is going to be the best DrupalCon ever!

This DrupalCon is going to feel different (and I think that's a good thing)

If you've been to previous DrupalCons, one thing you'll notice right away is that this one is going to have a different vibe. Normally we're in a downtown convention center where you can walk to bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and whatever else you stumble across.

This isn't that. The Grand Cypress sits in the middle of Orlando's resort area near Disney. If you want to leave the property, you'll probably grab an Uber or Lyft. Disney Springs is only about 10 minutes away, and the parks are just beyond that.

But honestly... I don't think most people are going to want to leave. This resort is awesome.

Instead of everyone scattering around downtown after the sessions end, I think we're going to end up hanging out together around the resort having poolside cocktails, or smores by the fire pits. And after spending the weekend there, I think that's going to make for an even better conference.

The pools are ridiculous

Seriously. The pool area is unlike anything we've ever had at a DrupalCon.

The pools wind around faux limestone cliffs with waterfalls pouring down into them. There's a cave that connects two sections of the pool, a grotto, a waterslide, two hot tubs, and tons of places to spread out.

Then you've got a poolside bar serving frozen drinks, beer, and food just a few steps away. I can already picture dozens of Drupal people hanging out there after sessions.

Florida in March is basically cheating

If you're coming from somewhere that's still cold in late March... congratulations. This is probably the nicest time of year to be in Florida.

Expect highs around 80°F (27°C), cool evenings, blue skies, and weather that's pretty much perfect for sitting outside all day. It's warm enough to swim without feeling like you're melting.

One of the nicest surprises is the hotel rate that we have. The Drupal Association was able to lock in an incredible rate of just $259/night, and that includes no resort fee. Considering this is one of the best times of year to visit Florida (and a resort like this!) it's an amazing deal. If you're planning to attend, book sooner rather than later:https://www.hyatt.com/events/en-US/group-booking/VISTA/G-DC27.

Everything is actually close together

This might sound boring compared to waterfalls and waterslides, but trust me, it matters. One thing I loved about the venue is how compact the conference space is. No hiking across giant hotel lobbies or speed-walking half a mile to your next session. No wondering which section your talk is actually in.

Everything is clustered together, which means less walking and more time talking to people in the hallways, which is the best part of every DrupalCon anyway.

Drupal's Got Talent is finally happening!

I've been trying to make this happen for years. Every DrupalCon I’d pitch the idea of a talent show, and every year something got in the way. Well... this is the year! It’s happening!

We'll be looking for pretty much anything entertaining:

Musicians
Bands
Stand-up comedy
Magic
Singing
Dancing
Juggling
Puppet shows
Weird talents you didn't think anyone wanted to see (we do)

We’re not taking sign-ups just yet, but keep an eye out!

What should you pack?

Besides your laptop?

👙 A swimsuit (trust me)
🩴 Flip-flops or sandals
😎 Sunglasses
🧴 Sunscreen
👕 Clothes for warm afternoons and cooler evenings
🎤 Your hidden talent

This venue is a little different than what we're used to, but after spending the weekend there, I know it's going to create a totally different kind, and super memorable, DrupalCon.

Instead of everyone disappearing into the city after the sessions end, I think people are going to stick around. Hanging out by the pool. Sitting around the fire pits. Grabbing a drink. Talking Drupal late into the night.

And honestly? I can't wait!

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Beyond Chatbots: Creating Smarter, Personalized Experiences in Drupal with AG-UI

Aaron Christian (aaronchristian) We are witnessing a fundamental shift in how businesses utilize Artificial Intelligence. The era of simple, text-based chatbots is ending. In its place, a new generation of "AI Agents" is emerging, intelligent digital assistants capable of reasoning and collaborating with humans in real-time to customize content experiences. For Drupal site owners, marketers, and content teams, this opens up a powerful opportunity. Imagine your website becoming a collaborative workspace, where AI collaborates with your visitors to personalize experiences in real time as they interact with your content. This session will introduce a new approach to bringing these interactive AI assistants into Drupal using a component-based toolkit built on AG-UI. While the technology runs behind the scenes, the experience is designed to feel natural and intuitive, AI that is embedded into your end user content experience, rather than in a disconnected pop-up. The session will include practical examples of how AI can: - Create more responsive, trustworthy user experiences through real-time interactivity, where the interface updates instantly as the AI works, giving users clear feedback and confidence - Protect your long-term investment in AI by using a standardized approach that avoids vendor lock-in and makes it easy to evolve or switch AI providers over time without disrupting your site experience - how this custom toolkit bridges the gap between complex AI logic and the intuitive Drupal user experience https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/beyond-chatbots-creating-smarter-personalized-experiences-drupal-ag-ui read more

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Launching the Drupal Site Template Marketplace

Tim Hestenes Lehnen (hestenet) The potential of Site Templates is clear: by combining recipes, demo content, and a Canvas-compatible theme, they make Drupal’s power, flexibility, and openness more accessible—giving users a head start with DrupalCMS. That innovation becomes transformative once these templates are easy to find and use via a Marketplace on Drupal.org. At DrupalCon Vienna, we announced a pilot program to launch the very first site templates, together with some early Template Makers drawn from the Drupal Certified Partners. We'll talk about what we've learned from the Marketplace pilot, how this will impact the roadmap for Drupal CMS, Drupal Canvas, and Drupal Site Templates in general, and what the roadmap looks like for scaling up to many more site templates. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/launching-drupal-site-template-marketplace read more

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How to Land an EPIC Contribution in Drupal (Without Losing Your Mind)

Mike Herchel (mherchel) Matt Glaman (mglaman) Behind every great Drupal feature is a stubborn person (not necessarily a developer) who refused to let it stay broken. Want to be that person? We’ll show you how. In this wildly entertaining session from two seasoned Drupal core maintainers and bug fixers, you’ll be walked through the murky steps of getting your feature or bugfix into Drupal core, Drupal CMS, or prominent contrib project. We'll cover: - Identifying issues or features that can be fixed - Pitching the idea to relevant stakeholders - Assembling your team - Doing the actual work (including what makes a MR review-worthy) - Handling the complexities of communication (spoiler: this is often the hardest part) - Getting it across the finish line (aka committed!) We’ll also break down real-world case studies of contributions to Drupal core, following them from first idea to final commit, and covering the wins, the failures, and the desperate Slack messages in between. At the end of this session, you’ll walk away with the motivation, ability, and confidence to land your very own EPIC contribution. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/how-land-epic-contribution-drupal-without-losing-your-mind read more

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Advanced Site Building with Drupal Canvas

Ted Bowman (tedbow) Enabling ambitious site builders has always been a superpower of Drupal and the introduction of Drupal Canvas has taken this to another level. This session will explore advanced site-building techniques utilizing the new Drupal Canvas module. Attendees will learn how to combine the power of Canvas with existing core modules like Views and popular contrib modules, all without writing any code! We will demonstrate how to build a demo site that leverages Drupal's robust information architecture capabilities alongside the streamlined user experience offered by Drupal Canvas. Attendees will learn how to: Create dynamic landing pages Use Canvas content templates to format structured content Link field data inside templates to SDC and Code Component properties Create template slots, enabling content editors to further customize content using Canvas templates. Manage permissions to tailor the user experience of Canvas for different user groups Build Views to showcase related content and author details inside Canvas templates. Use Views to display lists of content formatted by Canvas templates As Drupal Canvas is rapidly evolving, we will cover the latest site building related Canvas features at the time of DrupalCon. We will also demonstrate some of the most useful contrib modules to extend Drupal Canvas. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/advanced-site-building-drupal-canvas read more

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Open Y: A Drupal-Powered Platform for Good

Avi Schwab (froboy) Sarah Halby (smhalby) The YMCA’s mission is rooted in community impact—and in today’s world, that includes a strong, unified digital presence. Enter Open Y, an open-source, Drupal-based platform built specifically for YMCAs to streamline content management, marketing, and integrations. In this session, we’ll dive into how Open Y empowers local YMCAs to deliver scalable, accessible, and user-friendly websites while reducing development overhead through shared community resources. Whether you're a developer, site builder, digital marketer, or decision-maker, you'll come away with: - An overview of the Open Y distribution and how it builds on Drupal 11 - A look at how the YMCA network collaborates to enhance the platform - Real-world examples of YMCAs using Open Y to increase engagement and reduce tech debt - A roadmap for getting started with Open Y (whether you're upgrading or launching a new site) We’ll also cover key modules and architecture choices in Open Y, and show how you can contribute or customize it to fit your organization’s unique needs. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/open-y-drupal-powered-platform-good read more

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A Dashboard that Works: Giving Editors What They Want, But Focusing on What They Need

Albert Hughes (ahughes3) Dave Hansen-Lange (dalin) When 500 editors across 130 sites log into our Drupal platform, the first thing they see is a dashboard designed to support their work. But what should that dashboard actually do? Over the last year, we’ve been figuring out how to answer that question. The result is a dashboard that surfaces what matters most to our editors: announcements about new features, their recent edits, broken links, accessibility issues, duplicate profiles, permissions, design settings, and more. This session isn’t a technical deep-dive into code; it’s the story of the decisions behind the dashboard. We’ll share how we prioritized features, balanced editor needs with technical realities, and decided what belonged on the dashboard—and what didn’t. Attendees will walk away with lessons they can apply to their own platforms, whether they manage one site or one hundred. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/dashboard-works-giving-editors-what-they-want-focusing-what-they-need read more

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AI Agents for Site Builders

Marcus Johansson (marcus_johansson) What if you could open up the world of Agents, so that people with communication and language skills could focus on the prompt writing and the actual way the Agents interact with Drupal or its content is just an abstraction that you get access to with a click of a button. The new Agents framework allows you to build your own business specific Agents without having to code a single line of code. This talk will showcase what an Agent is, the background on how we built the framework, what they can be used for and how they interact with the MCP framework. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/ai-agents-site-builders read more

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Building Enterprise AI Tools: From Concept to Production

Mark Shropshire (shrop) Mike Wilbur (mwilbur) Organizations rush to implement AI but see minimal ROI by treating it as a feature rather than a fundamental shift in how teams work. This gap costs companies millions in wasted licenses and missed opportunities. This session cuts through the hype to show our proven approach for developing AI-powered solutions that integrate seamlessly with existing enterprise systems. We'll demonstrate real tools built for clients, including Tessera—our AI solution that transforms project management by intelligently generating comprehensive Jira epics, issues, and tasks from high-level requirements. You'll see how we leverage Elvex for integration orchestration, n8n for workflow automation, and modern AI technologies to create maintainable, scalable systems. This is battle-tested methodology from enterprise development trenches, covering architecture decisions, integration patterns, and practical considerations separating successful implementations from expensive experiments. Live demonstrations show these tools connecting with Drupal APIs and content management systems, but principles apply to any enterprise platform. You'll learn to evaluate AI use cases, design robust architectures, create intuitive interfaces, and maintain systems in real-world environments using approaches you can implement immediately. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/building-enterprise-ai-tools-concept-production read more

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Stop building AI features

Every CMS and web tool is racing to add AI content generation, AI image editing, AI assistants. It makes sense — and demos look great! But this approach has a ceiling. We will never out-build the frontier model providers, and the features we ship today will feel outdated in six months. There's a different strategy that plays to open source strengths, and it has nothing to do with building AI features your users interact with directly. It's about what happens when AI agents — not humans — become the primary way people create, manage, and transact on the web. This talk makes the case that the most important AI investment for open source CMSs isn't the features you ship. It's the infrastructure you expose. We'll look at what an agent-ready platform looks like, why open source has a structural advantage over closed SaaS and one-shot apps in this shift, and what changes when you stop thinking about AI as a feature and start thinking about it as your audience. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/stop-building-ai-features read more

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From Insights to Innovation: How UX Research is driving the future of Drupal CMS

Emma Horrell (emma horrell) What if Drupal's biggest innovation opportunity comes from studying users, not systems? As Drupal CMS UX Research Lead, my Drupal journey is unconventional. As a content writer and UX professional I am obsessed with watching people use interfaces to spark transformative ideas. I’m committed to aligning Drupal's strengths with user goals, from mindful word choices to strategic AI implementation, so I’m perfectly placed to lead Drupal's UX evolution! UX thinking bridges the gap between Drupal's power and non-technical users' needs. This session reveals how a comprehensive UX research programme is driving a product that's fundamentally changing the narrative about Drupal, turning feelings into features and accelerating innovation across our entire community. Join my session and you’ll get consolidated research findings and the full picture of what we’ve learned from AI testing, surveys, interviews, concept studies, and usability research. I'll reveal what telemetry data exposed about users’ first encounters with Drupal CMS, and share eye-opening results from our community quiz about Drupal terminology. You'll understand how we use all this data to make product decisions and maintain our continuous learning approach. I’ll include interactive discussion time for your feedback and feature requests, and I'll teach you practical UX techniques you can immediately apply to make your Drupal work more user-focused. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/insights-innovation-how-ux-research-driving-future-drupal-cms read more

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Designing for Difference: Practical Strategies for Building a Neuroinclusive Organization

Matthew Saunders (matthews) If recognizing the value of neurodiversity is the first step, the next is changing systems, environments, and behaviours to actually support neurodivergent people. Neuroinclusive spaces use the ethos of Universal Design. Universal design (UD) is a concept that involves designing products and environments to be usable by as many people as possible, regardless of age, size, ability, or disability. The goal is to maximize usability without the need for specialized design or adaptation. UD can be applied to many things, including buildings, services, tools, learning strategies, and physical spaces. It focuses on equity in design. This session will move beyond why neurodiversity matters and focus on how to operationalize inclusion at every level of an organization, from hiring, to team culture, to leadership practices. Neuroinclusion isn’t about fixing people, it’s about fixing systems. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/designing-difference-practical-strategies-building-neuroinclusive-organization read more

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Breaking the Theme Barrier: Simplifying Drupal with SDC & SDC Display

Jennifer Dust (jldust) Drupal's Single Directory Components (SDC) represent a significant shift in how we approach component-based theming by grouping templates, CSS, and JavaScript into a single directory. This architecture simplifies both the organization and the management of theme components, making it easier for developers to maintain and scale Drupal projects. SDC ensures that all assets related to a component are located in one place, streamlining the development process and reducing complexity for front-end and back-end teams alike. The SDC Display module adds flexibility by allowing developers and site builders to link components directly through Drupal’s admin interface. It breaks down theming barriers by making components reusable and accessible, enabling site builders and themers to map and manage components without relying solely on custom code. As a result, it makes it easier to adapt and reuse components across different sections of a site without manual intervention. In this session, we’ll showcase a practical demo of SDC and SDC Display in action, illustrating how to efficiently build and connect SDC components for a faster and more maintainable development workflow. We’ll also discuss strategies to improve collaboration between designers, front-end developers (FEDs) and back-end developers (BEDs), enabling each to work more efficiently within their areas of expertise. Slides for this presentation: https://bit.ly/breaking-the-theme-barrier https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/breaking-theme-barrier-simplifying-drupal-sdc-sdc-display read more

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A peek behind the curtain on how we run an open source, global, and privacy-first AI Infrastructure

Michael Schmid (schnitzel) In this session, we will let you all see behind the curtain of amazee.ai. This will not be a sales pitch in any way, but rather an in depth overview how AI infrastructure is ran today on a global scale. While AI developers might only see an API endpoint, behind the scenes a lot more is happening. A short overview of the things that we will cover: - API Gateways - How LLMs are actually executed - How VectorDBs work - Monitoring, Alerting and Metrics tools we use - How we can ensure privacy and data compliance - Actual demos, Dashboards and much more! https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/peek-behind-curtain-how-we-run-open-source-global-and-privacy-first-ai read more

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Misusing...er...uh... Re-purposing Recipes to achieve development bliss

Philip Frilling (pfrilling) I want... - Drupal CMS - Configuration management - Automatic updates - Git workflows - Modern infrastructure - Continuous delivery - Project Browser for content editors In the words of Queen, "I want it all... and I want it now!" Drupal's configuration management has evolved from strictly living in the database to becoming entities that can be exported, imported and validated. The strict management of configuration in code has me longing for the days where we just let the database handle it all. With the rise of Drupal CMS, configuration management becomes even more challenging. How do we allow content editors and site administrators the ability to configure their site without having a deployment pipeline config:import and blow away those changes? Can we have our configuration management and our modern workflows? https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/misusingeruh-re-purposing-recipes-achieve-development-bliss read more

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Selling Drupal: How to win projects, and not alienate delivery teams

Hannah O'Leary (hannaholeary) Hannah McDermott (hannah mcdermott) All too frequently the relationship between sales and delivery is a constant balancing act. Sales teams are driven by ambitious targets, while delivery teams are focused on accurate scoping, sustainable recovery rates, and the practical realities of open-source implementation. The result? Friction, misaligned expectations, and, in the worst cases, even a hit to client satisfaction. In this session, we’ll share how Zoocha’s Business Development and Delivery leadership joined forces to turn this tension into a genuine partnership. By introducing transparent handover processes, joint scoping, and shared KPIs, we built a framework where both teams can genuinely succeed together. We’ll discuss improved forecasting accuracy, how open communication channels reduced “us vs them” dynamics, and how collaboration had a direct impact on quality Drupal delivery and client happiness. Attendees will walk away with practical strategies to replicate in their own organizations: tools for building cross-team empathy, opportunities for aligning metrics, and methods for creating a culture of transparency. Whether you lead sales, manage projects, or oversee delivery teams, this session will give you a fresh perspective on how to bridge one of the most common frictions in agency life. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/selling-drupal-how-win-projects-and-not-alienate-delivery-teams read more

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Design Logic Unearthed: Code rock-solid sites via the lost art of design interrogation

Daniel O'Connor (daniel-oconnor) It’s a scenario we’ve all lived through: your deadline is fast approaching. UI bugs are cropping up left, right and center. Spacing is so inconsistent it looks jarring, and your client is stressed that every image they upload in Drupal comes out with people’s faces cropped in half. Can you resist the temptation to add another hack, another field, another confusing instruction? What if instead we took a peek at the design logic behind these elements and found something better? Join me as we resurrect the lost art of design interrogation: a front-end skill for finding lasting solutions that are more robust, more intuitive and simpler to maintain by developing through the eyes of a designer. In this presentation we’ll look at common technical issues in front-end development, and consider why band-aid solutions come up short. We'll then go on a treasure hunt for design logic that allows us to create confident systems that govern spacing, images, and all the rest. Finally, we'll hone our new skill of design interrogation to root out where design logic is missing, and use it as an opportunity to create our own. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/design-logic-unearthed-code-rock-solid-sites-lost-art-design-interrogation read more

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No Code Queries: Dynamic Content with Views

Amani Mansour (amani.mansour92) Drupal’s Views module is a powerful tool for building custom content listings, filtered displays, and dynamic, auto-updating pages — all without writing any code. As DrupalCMS continues to simplify the site-building experience with a user-friendly interface and built-in tools like Experience Builder, many newer users are discovering Drupal for the first time. Views provides a natural next step for those users: a way to go beyond simple content creation and start building more dynamic, tailored experiences. In this session, we’ll walk through how Views works, including: Creating lists of content, users, media, or taxonomy terms Using filters, sorting, and contextual logic to tailor displays Displaying Views as blocks or pages Connecting Views with Layout Builder or Experience Builder This session will demonstrate how Views can help you build smarter, more flexible sites — without needing to write custom code. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/no-code-queries-dynamic-content-views read more

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Designing for Depth: Information Architecture Strategies in Large Drupal Sites

Anne Lentino (alentino) When your Drupal site spans thousands of pages, good content structure isn’t just helpful, it’s essential. This 30-minute session will share practical strategies for managing large-scale Drupal sites through user-centered information architecture (IA) and smart use of Drupal’s tools. You’ll see how user research informed taxonomy design and content prioritization, how to build navigation patterns that help users explore deep content archives, and which Drupal features enable scalable, flexible, and future-friendly IA structures. Whether you’re redesigning a large site or maintaining a complex one, this session will give you actionable approaches to architect smarter, faster, and more intuitive Drupal experiences. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/designing-depth-information-architecture-strategies-large-drupal-sites read more

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Steal This Playbook: UX Lessons From Nonprofit Websites

Janna Fiester (jannafiester) Joanna Jackson (joannajackson) Great non-profit websites do more than deliver content, they create connection. They guide users, inspire engagement and donations, and make complex organizations feel human. In this session, we’ll break down real-world examples of top non-profit websites and show how their UX strategies translate into Drupal builds and performant experiences. From navigation patterns to content architecture to design choices, you’ll leave with an actionable playbook of practical ideas ready to apply to your next Drupal project. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/steal-playbook-ux-lessons-nonprofit-websites read more

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Stop creating Drupal Forms! Just describe a schema - the form will appear automatically!

Alexey Korepov (murz) Oh, that Drupal Forms... Too much code just to create a simple form with a couple of fields! What if I tell you that those times are in the past? Now, just describing the form data in the YAML declarative format is enough! The rest will be done automatically, without any line of code: the form fields design, validation, submission, saving to the database, and all other boring stuff - everything works out of the box! Using this declarative approach, you can create any type of form automatically: - End-user forms, like a feedback form or a comment form. - Custom settings pages with automatic saving to the configuration. - Entity Forms with all base fields editable in the form. And if you want to customize some fields or the submission flow, you're still able to do this by code. But just with a couple of code lines, without tons of boilerplate. Come to learn how to make forms without pain, and forget those times of writing a lot of code lines. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/stop-creating-drupal-forms-just-describe-schema-form-will-appear-automatically read more

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Winning the Higher Ed CMS Battle: How to Outsell Proprietary Platforms with Drupal

We know that Drupal is a predominant Content Management System amongst the top 100 universities globally. What about the other 5,000+ institutions? Who’s choosing proprietary CMS’s, when, and why? How can we ensure Drupal agencies are positioned competitively when competing against proprietary partners for website redesigns? In this session, we’ll walk through data-driven insights for agency leaders competing in the higher education market. We’ll focus on: - Proprietary CMS’s products, features, pricing, differentiators, and more - Guiding a CMS recommendation or a CMS evaluation process - Addressing common misconceptions around Drupal By the end of the presentation, you’ll be better-equipped to win Drupal work at the critical junction of the CMS + agency choice. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/winning-higher-ed-cms-battle-how-outsell-proprietary-platforms-drupal read more

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Next Generation ECA - Vision and Progress update

Jürgen Haas (jurgenhaas) ECA (the Event, Condition, Action module) for modern Drupal has established itself as the go-to tool for automating Drupal workflows with a no-code/low-code approach. After several years in production and with the benefit of experience and feedback from hundreds of power users, the time has come to plan and execute the future of ECA and make an even bigger difference for Drupal and all its users. ECA's future vision is to accomplish the following goals: 1. Currently, ECA is used by only 1% of Drupal users; the next generation of ECA will be suitable for all Drupal users, including those with little or no experience of the platform. 2. Getting started with ECA currently requires users to have a basic understanding of Drupal and its workflow. The next-generation ECA will be intuitive for all users, enabling them to achieve success with ECA in minutes. 3. The next-generation ECA will guide users, helping them to elevate their skills and achieve more as they progress. 4. Personas: currently, ECA caters for developers, site builders and project managers. This will be extended to enable all users to build their own workflows and automations. This session will outline how the maintainers and the Drupal community are planning to achieve these goals and how much progress has been made so far. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/next-generation-eca-vision-and-progress-update read more

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Drupal Test Traits - Learn by example

Moshe Weitzman (moshe weitzman) Learn about Drupal Test Traits (DTT), an open source project started by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Dive into real tests from our open source project, and learn how DTT works under the hood. mass.gov is large, content-centric site. Most of our tests click around and assert that content is laid out properly, the right icons are showing, etc. In order to test this stuff, we need the mass.gov database - testing on an empty site won't do. The traditional tool for testing a site using an existing database is Behat. So we used Behat for over a year and found it getting more and more awkward. We've replaced Behat with DTT! DTT reuses the awesome Drupal core testing system, so it works with your site's content, as opposed to an empty site. It supports testing client side interactions in addition to traditional browsing. At the end of this session, you will have another tool to test your content-centric sites. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/drupal-test-traits-learn-example read more

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Drupal CMS, site templates and beyond

Pamela Barone (pameeela) Cristina Chumillas (ckrina) Drupal CMS 2.0 has launched, complete with Drupal Canvas and site templates! What does this mean for building Drupal sites? And what's next? Some topics we may cover: * How we're using Canvas and what it offers * Features and areas we're working on now * Plans for future versions ongoing * What we're looking for from contributors * How we defined the strategy and scope * Using the strategy to define the roadmap and what it looks like now * Highlights from the development of Drupal CMS 2.0 and what we learned https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/drupal-cms-site-templates-and-beyond read more

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Escape from Drupal Island! (Spice level: 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ )

Josh Koenig (joshk) It's been 13 years since the original call to "get off the island" went out. Since then the web has grown and changed quite a lot, yet DrupalCon remains a sea of familiar faces. Community is a comfort, and there’s much to celebrate on this 25th anniversary, but for this project to thrive it must tap new sources of energy. Much of the thinking in this community is informed by hard-won experience, but also biased towards the past. The web is being ripped apart and put back together in real time, but the rate of adoption of Drupal is basically flat. The time is now to question everything. What if the solution isn't putting more into Drupal, but putting Drupal into more things? Instead of importing more features to Drupal Island, what would it take to get out there and build connections, bridges, and conduits to other sources of innovation? In this provocative presentation, Pantheon Co-Founder and Drupal user number 3,133 Josh Koenig will present market data on the state of the Web, AI’s impacts on our profession, and lay out a what he sees as the best path for Drupal practitioners to chart their course forward for themselves, and for their organizations. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/escape-drupal-island-spice-level read more

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Agent Experience (AX) and AI-driven Drupal

Scott Falconer (scott-falconer) We spend significant time optimizing User and Developer Experience (UX/DX), but our next frontier is Agent Experience (AX). As AI agents like Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex become everyday tools, how do we ensure they actually understand Drupal's unique architecture, APIs, and best practices? Out of the box, general-purpose AI agents may wander or fail at tasks because they lack appropriate context. Today, our community is actively defining the infrastructure for AI-driven Drupal - unifying AGENTS.md, CLI tools, and "Agent Skills" into a cohesive standard. In this session, we will demystify this new ecosystem and show you how to drastically scale your Drupal workflows. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/agent-experience-ax-and-ai-driven-drupal read more

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Future-Proofing Accessibility: Strategies for Government & University Platforms

Kat Shaw (katannshaw) Monica "Nikki" Flores (monicadear) Javier Reartes (javi-er) Kat Shaw and M. Nikki Flores are CPACC-certified and work with Javier Reartes at Lullabot to integrate accessibility as a mindset and framework into government platforms, such as for the states of Iowa, Maryland, and Georgia, and higher education, such as UMass Amherst and NYU. This session explores how governments and higher education institutions can move beyond basic compliance to truly implement accessibility across their digital platforms. We delve into strategies for integrating accessibility throughout the project lifecycle, from initial planning and design to development, QA testing, and content entry. Drawing on real-world case studies, including Iowa.gov’s digital transformation project and the State of Maryland platform, we discuss how to leverage Drupal's features and contributed modules to create accessible experiences. The session covers key aspects including: a) design system reviews, b) automated and manual testing, c) content entry training for meaningful alt text and logical heading order, and d) benefits of cross-collaboration. Attendees gain insights into fostering a "shift-left" methodology, preventing issues, increasing cross-collaboration, and ultimately delivering higher quality, more inclusive digital services. We also touch upon the importance of understanding the "why" behind accessibility, considering the experiences of users with disabilities, and the long-term benefits of an accessibility-forward approach. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/future-proofing-accessibility-strategies-government-university-platforms read more

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Next steps for Drupal Canvas

Lauri Timmanee (lauriii) For years, the Drupal community has talked about a component-driven future. The Drupal Canvas is where that future finally becomes a reality. This is more than just an evolution of Layout Builder; it's a fundamental paradigm shift in how we think about building with Drupal. Join us for a visionary, forward-looking session that goes beyond a simple roadmap. We'll explore the core concepts behind Drupal Canvas and demonstrate how upcoming features will unlock new possibilities. You will leave this session empowered to shape the future of digital experiences with Drupal Canvas. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/next-steps-drupal-canvas read more

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Teaching an old site new tricks: Refreshing the Flagship at Harvard Medical School

Antonio Savorelli (antiorario) Our talk will present the most salient aspects of what we call the HMS Flagship Refresh project, born out of multiple needs: integrating the MD Program’s content into the site, before OpenScholar’s decommissioning in November 2025; enhancing the role of the site as an editorial product, after the 2023 launch of the standalone Harvard Medicine magazine; and the structural and visual modernization of the site, which in 2024 was the oldest flagship among Harvard schools. Our main constraints were, predictably, time and budget, and the idea that finding a way to keep working on the existing site would be more economical and sustainable than embarking in a multi-year, full-on redesign-and-rebuild project. In addition to that, not fully outsourcing the project would allow us to take advantage of our small but experienced web-development team. We’ll explore the main aspects of our approach: 1. We hired vendors for key project milestones: content strategy to integrate the new content while preserving the site’s integrity, and design and front-end development for new and refreshed components 2. We established a multi-office collaboration process with strong project management and internal communication to make the process transparent and inclusive of all stakeholders, including school leadership and site owners 3. We have been progressively rebuilding the site using modern, flexible, and sustainable techniques, from layout patterns to coding standards and Drupal-related technologies https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/teaching-old-site-new-tricks-refreshing-flagship-harvard-medical-school read more

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Increasing enrolment amidst changing student demographics

CJ Pagtakhan (cjpagtakhan) Higher education is facing a critical challenge: shifting demographics, increasing competition, and evolving student expectations are making enrolment growth harder than ever. In this session, we’ll explore how Drupal can be a powerful driver of enrolment success by enabling personalization, accessibility, streamlined user journeys, and data-driven decision-making. Drawing on insights from more than 500 digital projects with colleges and universities across North America, we’ll showcase proven strategies, real-world examples, and actionable takeaways that your institution can apply immediately. Whether you’re focused on attracting first-generation students, improving graduate program visibility, or re-engaging adult learners, this session will highlight how Drupal’s flexibility and scalability can help you meet the moment and deliver measurable enrolment results. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/increasing-enrolment-amidst-changing-student-demographics read more

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The state of JavaScript Code Components in Drupal Canvas

Bálint Kléri (balintbrews) Drupal Canvas introduced Code Components last year at DrupalCon Atlanta, opening a new avenue for Drupal frontend engineering by shipping a zero-setup, in-browser code editor, and out-of-the-box support for React and Tailwind CSS. A lot has happened since then. As the technical lead for Code Components, I've watched the possibilities steadily grow as Drupal Canvas has matured and become stable. New features have been introduced to support data fetching and Next.js-style image optimization. Experiments are underway to support server-side rendering and third-party imports. Editing Code Components is no longer bound to the browser: A CLI tool makes it possible to work with them in any development environment. This opens up interesting opportunities, such as building decoupled frontends. This session will discuss different approaches and techniques for working with Code Components in Drupal Canvas, as well as the current state of all features, experiments, and plans for the future. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/state-javascript-code-components-drupal-canvas read more

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Facilitating Like a Dungeon Master: Using RPG Skills for Stakeholder Magic

Eric Davila (erykmynn) For so many of our projects, the key to success lies in mastering the art of listening and interpreting feedback—skills that any seasoned game master knows well. Just as a game master guides players through an evolving story, product teams must navigate the complex dynamics of customer and stakeholder relationships. This session will explore how techniques from tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons can be applied to stakeholder management and all forms of facilitation. We’ll delve into the importance of letting stakeholders talk, understanding their underlying needs, and translating feedback into actionable strategies—much like interpreting the motivations and actions of players in a campaign. We’ll also look at models for setting expectations and boundaries in kickoff meetings, then structuring and preparing for the work ahead. You’ll learn how to balance different personalities, keep the “party” moving forward toward a shared goal while avoiding common pitfalls like railroading, scope creep, or disengaged participants. Whether you’re dealing with demanding clients, internal teams, or external partners, this session will equip you with the tools to become a “game master” in your professional projects. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/facilitating-dungeon-master-using-rpg-skills-stakeholder-magic read more

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The Bug Stops Here: The State of Georgia Shifts Left

James Sansbury (q0rban) Jasmyne Epps (jasmyneepps) How the State of Georgia streamlined their QA and UAT process to ship code faster and catch bugs earlier. Jasmyne Epps (Unit Director, Digital Services Georgia) and James Sansbury (Owner, Tugboat) reveal how Georgia transformed their software delivery lifecycle for GovHub, their Drupal CMS powering 80+ state agency websites. Traditional staging-server bottlenecks created end-of-sprint QA crunches, delayed releases, team burnout, and expensive rework. Migrating 80+ websites with the existing workflow was infeasible. Implementing "shift left" moved testing, QA, and stakeholder signoff to pull request time. This distributed QA throughout sprints and caught issues earlier, benefiting developers, QA testers, product managers, and stakeholders. Key Topics: • Identifying and eliminating SDLC bottlenecks • Implementing "shift left" testing in government environments • Leveraging Docker, CircleCI, and Tugboat for testing infrastructure • Managing complex migration workflows with parallel testing • Visual regression testing and automated QA integration • Secure data handling strategies for realistic test environments https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/bug-stops-here-state-georgia-shifts-left read more

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Drupal AI Initiative: A Year in Review with Panel Q&A

Paul Johnson (pdjohnson) Christoph Breidert (breidert) James Abrahams (yautja_cetanu) Scott Falconer (scott-falconer) Kristen Pol (kristen pol) With the launch of the Drupal AI Initiative approaching its one-year anniversary, now is the perfect time for a critical look back and an exciting preview of what's next. Building on the significant announcements around AI revealed in the DriesNote, this session offers a comprehensive exploration of the Drupal AI Initiative. Attendees will gain an in-depth understanding of the progress achieved so far, including recent developments in AI integration within Drupal, as well as the roadmap for upcoming features and improvements. The session will include: * A detailed overview of the current capabilities enabled by the Drupal AI Initiative. * A forward-looking discussion of upcoming developments, including opportunities for community contribution and experimentation. * An open “Ask Me Anything” segment, providing participants the chance to engage directly with the initiative’s technical leads, clarify technical questions, and explore integration possibilities. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/drupal-ai-initiative-year-review-panel-qa read more

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Beyond the Drupal bubble: Building a cross-community ecosystem

Maya Schaeffer (mayalena) Alex Dergachev (dergachev) Drupal has always thrived because of its passionate developer community. But the future of Drupal depends on something bigger: the ecosystem around it. Designers, communicators, strategists, web managers, and decision-makers all influence whether Drupal gets adopted and sustained. Over the past three years, Maya Schaeffer and Alex Dergachev have experimented with ways to bring these broader audiences into the Drupal ecosystem through the EvolveDrupal (now EvolveDigital) summit series. When the first events launched, about 60% of attendees were technical, and many non-technical roles were hesitant to attend something branded as a “Drupal event.” Through intentional outreach, personal invitations, ecosystem partnerships, and programming focused on real digital challenges, the audience gradually shifted to roughly 30% technical and 70% broader digital roles across higher education, government, agencies, nonprofits, and tech vendors. In this session, we’ll share what we learned from organizing 11 summits designed to get “off the Drupal island.” We’ll explore how outreach, branding, programming, and collaboration can bring new voices into the ecosystem—and how agencies, community organizers, and contributors can act as force multipliers for Drupal’s future. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/beyond-drupal-bubble-building-cross-community-ecosystem read more

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Config Pages: The Missing Admin UI for Your Custom Site Settings

Anna Femath (afem) Most custom features in Drupal need settings, but too often, those settings are hidden behind broad admin permissions, hardcoded into modules or themes, or require custom forms just to expose them. In this session, we will explore the Config Pages module, a clean and maintainable solution to manage structured settings through site building tools and the Field API. We will cover use cases like managing site-wide alerts, global contact information, and quick links, demonstrating examples built with U.S. Web Design System (USWDS). You’ll learn how Config Pages improves the editorial experience through tightly scoped permissions that show editors only what they need and giving developers full control over how and where settings appear in Twig templates or as configurable blocks. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/config-pages-missing-admin-ui-your-custom-site-settings read more

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Deploy with Confidence: Automated Testing for Drupal

Dharizza Espinach (dharizza) Simon Morvan (garphy) Shipping updates for Drupal sites doesn’t have to be stressful or error-prone. In this session, we’ll dive deep into automated testing as the backbone of a reliable CI/CD workflow, showing how developers can confidently move code from development to production while preventing regressions and maintaining site quality. Using real-world examples, we’ll explore how to integrate automated testing at multiple stages of your workflow, including: - Unit and functional testing to verify individual modules and site functionality. - Visual regression testing with tools like Diffy to catch unintended layout or design changes before deployment. - Multi-stage testing pipelines that run tests at local, staging, and pre-production environments to ensure safe, repeatable deployments. Attendees will leave with a practical understanding of how to implement a full test-driven deployment strategy for Drupal, reduce errors, and improve confidence in their releases. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/deploy-confidence-automated-testing-drupal read more

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AI as a PM’s Co-Pilot: Decision-Making with the OODA Loop

Jaspreet Singh (jaspreetsingh31) As a project manager, I remember how overwhelming it was to handle that big Drupal multi-site rollout. There were so many tickets to track, and the client’s priorities kept shifting. With different teams depending on each other, I often felt like I was just putting out fires instead of steering the project. I started looking into AI tools, not to replace me, but to act as an assistant — something to help me see things clearly and make decisions faster. I used the OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) to give structure to how I worked with AI. a) Observe: I had AI scan Jira boards, Slack chats, and long client emails to pull key points and risks into short summaries. b) Orient: It helped me analyze workflows, spot stuck tickets, and highlight dependencies. c) Decide: With that context, I could prioritize better, unblock the team, and shift focus where it mattered most. d) Act: I laid out the next steps simply, kept the team aligned, and updated the client so everyone stayed on the same page. This gave me structure, reduced chaos, and helped me feel in control. AI is everywhere now, but without a framework, it can add clutter. The OODA Loop bridges that gap — not replacing PMs but helping us make quicker, clearer decisions. Using this, we caught problems earlier, sprints felt more manageable, meetings ran shorter, and clients noticed steady progress with fewer surprises. For me, it meant less time lost in my inbox and more time moving the project forward. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/ai-pms-co-pilot-decision-making-ooda-loop read more

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Managing Configuration for Drupal Multisites: Config Splits, Templates, and Automation

Jordan Thompson (nord102) Running multiple sites from a single Drupal codebase is powerful—and tricky—when it comes to configuration. One site needs a feature, another must not have that feature; environment overrides creep in; and “just export and import” stops being simple. This session presents a clear, repeatable approach built around distinct Config Split types and shows how to templatize and automate them so adding a new site is a 5‑minute task, not a much longer ordeal. What we’ll be covering: - Site-level splits (per-domain overrides), feature-level splits (toggleable features any site can opt into), and environment-level splits (dev/stage/prod tooling). - Setting split precedence using Config Split - Opinionated directory structure and naming conventions that prevent overlap and drift. - Reusable site-level split templates - A lightweight automation command that scaffolds a new site-level split from the template and runs a quick validation so you know it’s sound. We’ll walk through creating a feature split, generating a new site split from a template, opting the site into the feature, and importing config across two sites locally. You’ll leave with an understanding of patterns, templates, and a simple automation you can adopt immediately. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/managing-configuration-drupal-multisites-config-splits-templates-and-automation read more

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Context is Everything: Configuring Drupal AI for Consistent, On-Brand Content

Kristen Pol (kristen pol) Aidan Foster (afoster) AI can generate landing pages, service pages, and blog posts in seconds - but without the right context, the results feel generic, off-brand, or just plain wrong. Context is what takes you from AI-slop to content that is authentic and resonates with your audience. In this session, we'll show you how to configure Drupal's Content Control Center and Canvas AI to produce content that actually sounds like your organization. You'll see how simple markdown files defining brand voice, tone, and content structure can dramatically improve AI outputs. Through demos, we'll walk you through creating a landing page, service page, and blog post to demonstrate how different context rules and guidelines can be applied in various applications. You'll leave with a practical starter framework for building your own context files, plus clear guidance on how to apply it to your Drupal site. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/context-everything-configuring-drupal-ai-consistent-brand-content read more

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From Chaos to Clarity: Building a Sustainable Content Governance Model with Drupal

Richard Nosek (richard-nosek) CJ Pagtakhan (cjpagtakhan) Organizations often struggle with fragmented content, inconsistent messaging, and editorial bottlenecks—especially as websites grow and multiple teams contribute to the same platform. In this session, we’ll explore how to design and implement a sustainable content governance model in Drupal that keeps your content organized, high-quality, and future-proof. Attendees will learn practical workflows for content authors, editors, and administrators, including strategies for approval processes, content audits, and lifecycle management. The session also covers frameworks for defining roles, responsibilities, and standards that scale across teams and departments. Real-world examples from Drupal sites of varying sizes will illustrate how structured governance not only improves content quality but also enhances collaboration, reduces technical debt, and supports long-term digital strategy goals. By the end of the session, you’ll have actionable insights to create a governance model that transforms chaotic content operations into a streamlined, sustainable system. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/chaos-clarity-building-sustainable-content-governance-model-drupal read more

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Display Builder, the HTMX-powered visual builder

Pierre Dureau (pdureau) HTMX has been added to Drupal 11.2 as a light javascript dependency to modernize and unify many legacy Drupal APIs: AJAX, AJAX for Views, Form States, Big Pipe… This addition is also opening new easy ways of building modern, performant, highly interactive, user interfaces for both the admin and front UI, without the need of javascript frameworks. One of those UI is the new Display Builder contrib module, which is leveraging HTMX, alongside many recent additions to Drupal Core, to provide a display building experience both unified (page layouts, entity displays, content and more) and powerful (design system native, live previews, iterative updates, realtime collaboration, adaptive profiles…). From this example, we will explore together how we can modernize the UI of other Drupal modules, providing a reactive, world-class, user experience while keeping the implementation lean and maintainable. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/display-builder-htmx-powered-visual-builder read more

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Drupal developer's guide to Canvas

Feliksas Mazeikis (f.mazeikis) This technical session covers the high-level architecture and inner workings of Drupal Canvas. The session focuses on the back-end aspects that Drupal developers need to know when developing with future Canvas adoption in mind. Learn the basics of the Canvas data model, the rationale behind its architecture, and which APIs are intended for module developers. I'll cover: - how to make SDCs and Block Plugins compatible with Canvas - how metadata and schema validation enables the Canvas UI to create relevant form fields on the fly - creating new Component Source Plugins, using Paragraphs and Layout Builder as examples - how Canvas' Component and Code Component config entity types' plumbing powers much of what you see in the UI We'll finish with an overview of existing debugging tools, available documentation, and configuration management strategies. The goal: you'll walk away with a sense of accomplishment that you *get* how it works and can expand it! https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/drupal-developers-guide-canvas read more

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Proposing a 'Code of Care' for the Drupal Community

Will Huggins (zoocha will) Following on from the DrupalCon Vienna session "It’s OK to NOT be OK! Establishing support frameworks in community teams", this session will advance the proposal to create a 'Code of Care' to enshrine in policy how we care for each other in the Drupal community. The session will explore in more depth the key themes of: The impact of external factors: Sometimes health, family, work or other personal reasons compromise our ability to follow through on the community obligations we have committed to. This can lead to guilt and shame, adding more pressure at precisely the time you need the most compassion and support. Dealing with over-commitment: There can be many reasons for ‘biting off more than we can chew’. A common one is because we are passionate about specific initiatives or subjects and really want to get involved… pushing ourselves beyond our own capacity. Spotting the warning signs: If a team member is struggling to cope, it is likely they put on a brave face and suffer in silence. A Code of Care would equip us all with tools and resources to help us spot warning signs and create ‘safe spaces’ for team members to seek help. The session will conclude with a detailed proposal for the 'Code of Care' and how it might be implemented. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/proposing-code-care-drupal-community read more

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Building AI-Powered Drupal Applications: From Setup to Production-Ready Features

Christoph Breidert (breidert) Transform your Drupal sites with practical AI integration in this hands-on workshop. Starting with the Drupal AI module installation, you'll progressively build AI-powered features including automated content generation, intelligent image alt text, CKEditor AI enhancements, and SEO optimization tools. Advanced topics cover AI automators for PDF processing, URL content import, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) for intelligent search. Each concept includes hands-on building with step-by-step guidance. You'll leave with working code, configured AI workflows, and the foundation to build sophisticated AI applications. Bring your laptop for the complete hands-on experience - no AI background required, just curiosity and basic Drupal familiarity. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/building-ai-powered-drupal-applications-setup-production-ready-features read more

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Beyond Chunk and Pray: Smarter RAG for Drupal AI

Vincenzo Gambino (vincenzo gambino) Everyone’s talking about RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), but let’s be honest: the standard demo usually goes something like this: split your content into chunks, toss them into a vector database, cross your fingers, and hope the LLM comes back with something vaguely useful. That’s fine for a project with straightforward content, but in the case of a hundred thousand Drupal nodes, you need a different RAG setup and strategy. In this session, we’ll look at how to make RAG actually reliable. We’ll cover: Introduction to RAG and embeddings: a tour through the basics of combining large language models with external knowledge. Hybrid retrieval: mixing semantic embeddings with old-school keyword search (BM25) so you don’t miss the obvious. Smarter chunking: using headings, paragraphs, and semantic cues instead of arbitrary splits. Re-ranking: allowing smaller models to refine the retrieval process before the LLM takes over. Context injection: using user profiles, session data, and relationships between nodes to give the model the “bigger picture.” You’ll leave with a clear sense of how to move from basic “embeddings in a box” to a proper AI assistant that respects your content structure, scales with Drupal, and maybe, just maybe, makes your users think you’ve built magic. Bring your curiosity, and perhaps a cup of tea. We’ll be doing more than chunking this time. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/beyond-chunk-and-pray-smarter-rag-drupal-ai read more

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The Strategic Evolution of Drupal and the AI Initiative - Orchestration and Beyond

James Abrahams (yautja_cetanu) At Vienna, we showcased how Canvas AI can transform page-building in Drupal. Now, we’re excited to show you the next step. The Drupal AI Initiative is driving the strategic evolution of Drupal through our dual-track approach: bi-weekly Immediate Impact releases and twice-yearly Strategic Evolution leaps. Our latest leap is the development of truly orchestrated Flows. Our rigorous focus on UX for tools like ECA, Tools API and MCP, means even ambitious site builders can create complex orchestrations without code, from content moderation to full site migrations. Our visual workflows give you precise control over AI agents, allowing you to combine intelligent non-deterministic AI agents with reliable and predictable standard deterministic actions. These innovations are the heart of what we do, and have the potential to turbocharge and future-proof how we engage with new Drupal builds. Our core tools can accomplish more without needing to develop new modules for each new iteration. This allows us to focus on a speedy time-to-market for releases whilst ensuring everything is working securely, reliably and on point. Come for a deeper dive into the AI features you saw in the DriesNote. Whether you're a developer, site builder, or decision-maker, you'll leave with practical knowledge of current AI capabilities in Drupal and insight into shaping its future. It's never been a better time to Do It With Drupal! https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/strategic-evolution-drupal-and-ai-initiative-orchestration-and-beyond read more

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Drupal.org Engineering Panel

Tim Hestenes Lehnen (hestenet) Join the Drupal.org engineering team for updates on our work to support the community. Learn how a small but mighty team not only supports Drupal.org as a community site, but also the project infrastructure including the updates servers, localization service, code repositories, testing, and much more. We'll also talk about our participation in core initiatives like AutoUpdates, Project Browser, and Recipes, as well as the next phase of the GitLab project. read more

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HTMX: a new toolset in Drupal Core

Shawn Duncan (fathershawn) HTMX has steadily risen among JavaScript projects since its release in recent years, gaining more new stars on GitHub in 2024 than React. Now HTMX is integrated into Drupal core and forms the basis of a subsystem that will replace our jQuery based Ajax API. HTMX is both simple and powerful. It enables any HTML element to become a hypermedia control, enhancing interaction with the site. HTMX uses HTML as its data structure enabling replacement or addition of new markup anywhere on the page. Drupal 11.3 shipped with a new subsystem that allows straightforward integration of HTMX into Drupal. This session will introduce this subsystem and the theory and practice of hypermedia web applications built with HTMX. We will walk through examples of how you can start using HTMX in your own projects and also look at the current status of the community initiative to replace the Ajax API. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/htmx-new-toolset-drupal-core read more

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Frontend Strategies for Drupal: From Multisite to Migrations

Rich Lawson (rklawson) Dharizza Espinach (dharizza) Drupal’s frontend ecosystem continues to evolve, and the right frontend strategy depends on the project context. Rather than a narrow “how-to” on a specific editor or framework, this session looks across types of Drupal frontend projects and the strategies that make them successful. Through case studies (multisite rollouts, design-system adoption, platform migrations and consolidations), attendees will learn which frontend approaches and tradeoffs map to which project types — and how to plan for maintainability, editor happiness, and cross-team adoption. read more

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Publish once in Drupal, Syndicate Everywhere

Keegan Rankin (megakeegman) Drupal excels at the Create Once, Publish Everywhere (COPE) model—using structured content to enable the same individual piece of content to flow into a variety of contexts. Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere (POSSE) is a relevant Indieweb principle, which is more specific to publishing content on your own site, and then to the places where it will actually reach your audience. Drupal has great potential in making it easy for content editors to govern content across multiple platforms. 3 years ago, it was difficult to make good recommendations on how to approach this potentially complex feature-set. Today, however, such solutions are increasingly flexible and easy to configure. Between the technical and cultural implications following the fragmentation of our social media networks, and the continued innovation by the Drupal community, our ability to practice POSSE in Drupal is looking better than ever. In addition to briefing on why now is such an opportune moment, I will demonstrate easy ways to syndicate content from your Drupal site, and provide guidance on which methods are suitable for various use cases. Expect to leave with a good understanding of how to write your content once and send it everywhere, with no extra services required. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/publish-once-drupal-syndicate-everywhere read more

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Get Aligned or Stay Stuck: How Experiments Unlock Team Potential

Cori Neslund (cneslund) Team's aren't getting stuck because they lack ideas -- they get stuck because they can’t agree on what to try next. Whether it’s due to navigating internal politics, a fear of failure, or decision fatigue, progress becomes a never-ending churn when a path forward struggles to be defined. Iterative experimentation doesn't just solve problems or reduce risk, it creates a sense of shared confidence in a team's abilities and demonstrates their capacity in tackling bigger, cooler, more impactful issues. In this session, we'll explore how the practice of designing safe-to-try experiments gives teams a way to unblock themselves consistently. Come learn how to design and implement experiments, build buy-in, and translate results into forward momentum. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/get-aligned-or-stay-stuck-how-experiments-unlock-team-potential read more

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Let the Browser Decide: Responsive Images as a Tool to Bridge the Digital Divide

Perry Brown (uptil4music) A major contributing factor to the Digital Divide - the unequal access to and effective use of digital technology - lies squarely with those of us who build and maintain websites. We often compel users to download enormous images to use our sites, without considering the burden this places on infrastructure, devices, data costs, and personal patience. The sheer magnitude of image-based web content, estimated at about 35% by volume, exacerbates the problem. It's time for us to responsibly use the excellent tools Drupal places at our disposal. We must architect our sites to balance our desire for visual impact with our duty to be good digital citizens, by empowering the browser to choose the most optimal image for every situation. It's time to rethink responsive images, relinquish centralized control, and let the browser decide. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/let-browser-decide-responsive-images-tool-bridge-digital-divide read more

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Migrate Smarter: How a Structured AI Methodology Unlocked a Complex Drupal 7 to 11 Migration

Marco Molinari (marco) Migrating a 15-year-old Italian humor site (132K nodes, 100K newsletter subscribers, 18 custom modules, 93 contrib modules, and a MailUp integration) to Drupal 11 is the kind of project that traditionally requires a team, months of work, and a budget that's hard to swallow. This session shows how a structured, artifact-driven AI methodology rewrote that calculus on a real, completed project. Tag1 Senior Architect Marco Molinari applied BMAD (Breakthrough Method for Agile AI-Driven Development) to deliver 40+ stories across 5 epics, migrating 300K entities, building 6 custom Drupal 11 modules, and completing integrations with Cloudflare, MailUp OAuth2, and Iubenda GDPR. Zero blockers. 100% story completion. The kind of results that redefine what's possible within a client budget. Drupal 11's clean architecture (Composer-based dependencies, config sync, typed services) proved to be a real advantage; these are patterns AI can reason about reliably in ways that Drupal 7's hook-heavy approach never allowed. Marco covers what worked, what didn't, and what this approach genuinely demands in time and expertise. Attendees leave with concrete practices and an honest picture of where AI-assisted development delivers and where experienced judgment is still irreplaceable. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/migrate-smarter-how-structured-ai-methodology-unlocked-complex-drupal-7-11 read more

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Preparing your Pipeline for the AI Era

James Sansbury (q0rban) Whether you're an AI optimist, a pessimist, or somewhere in-between, there's no getting around it: if you aren't shipping AI-generated code yet, you will be. Are you and your team prepared for it? The traditional code review process wasn't designed for machine-generated code. When AI can produce hundreds of lines in seconds, human reviewers become the bottleneck—and more critically, they miss things. AI generates seemingly perfect code that can harbor subtle business logic errors, security vulnerabilities, or integration issues that only surface under real conditions. No amount of peer review is sufficient for AI-generated code. The solution? Test everything before it merges. When AI can generate features in minutes, your testing strategy needs to match that pace—or risk becoming the new bottleneck. In this session, we'll explore how to build testing pipelines that scale with AI, and why your deployment strategy might determine whether AI becomes your superpower or your liability. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/preparing-your-pipeline-ai-era read more

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From Search Bars to Chatbots: Decoding User Expectations for AI Chat

Emily Kodner (emoleee) Alma Meshes (ameshes) Chat bubbles are everywhere, but are they actually working for users? Sandstorm® conducted usability studies with actual users to uncover what people really want when interacting with AI-driven tools. We tested transactional bots, generative AI, hybrid models, and domain-specific chat experiences to see where they succeed, where they fall short, and how they compare to traditional search. In this session, we will share 5 key findings from our research, including where users instinctively go for support, how they react when AI is in play, and what kinds of experiences foster trust instead of frustration. Attendees will walk away with a practical decision framework for when to use search, chat, or both to create more intuitive and effective Drupal experiences. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/search-bars-chatbots-decoding-user-expectations-ai-chat read more

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Engineering for security compliance: How to prepare before the audit

Matthew Connerton (mrconnerton) Slides: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cwnuN5UooC_dnwGhzFqt8rTGBVV4YAD9/view?… Security and privacy compliance certifications—like SOC 2 (a leading audit standard for security, availability, and confidentiality) and HITRUST (a healthcare-focused security framework)—are quickly becoming standard requirements for healthcare, finance, and other regulated industries building on Drupal. The challenge isn’t just writing policies—it’s proving through code, infrastructure, and process that your systems are secure and well-governed. This session shares engineering lessons from Encore Healthcare’s journey to SOC 2 and HITRUST readiness on a Drupal-based SaaS platform. Instead of focusing on checklists, we’ll explore how to design Drupal architecture, CI/CD, and infrastructure so compliance readiness is continuous, not seasonal. You’ll see how access control, logging, configuration management, and deployment pipelines can produce auditable evidence automatically. We’ll cover aligning Drupal’s configuration management, custom modules, and hosting environments with security controls for change management, encryption, and least privilege. You’ll learn how observability practices can turn audit requirements into real-time visibility and ongoing assurance. You’ll leave with a blueprint for building compliance-aware Drupal applications where your infrastructure, code, and processes work together to make audits almost boring. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/engineering-security-compliance-how-prepare-audit read more

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Strategies for Integrating Drupal Canvas in Your Existing Drupal Platform

Boyan Borisov (boyan.borisov) Explore practical strategies for adopting Drupal's Drupal Canvas in existing platforms, ensuring a smooth transition without compromising current investments. Drupal's Drupal Canvas introduces a new approach to content management with an intuitive, drag-and-drop interface for creating and styling pages directly within the browser. For organizations with established Drupal sites utilizing tools like Layout Builder or Paragraphs, transitioning to Drupal Canvas presents both opportunities and challenges. This session will explore practical strategies for adopting Drupal Canvas in existing platforms, ensuring a smooth evolution without compromising current investments. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/strategies-integrating-drupal-canvas-your-existing-drupal-platform read more

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Using Drupal Doesn't Make You Open Source — Lessons from Europe's Largest Public Sector Platform

Adam Nagy (joevagyok) Today the European Commission runs one of the largest Drupal platforms in the world. In the beginning it was adoption without contribution. Each institution tried to implement similar solutions. This talk is about what changed when we stopped trying to justify giving back to the community and started building in a way where contribution is what comes out the other end. Shared modules, common governance, and a platform designed so that doing the work well and doing open source are the same thing. If your organization uses open source but hasn't figured out how to give back, this one's for you. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/using-drupal-doesnt-make-you-open-source-lessons-europes-largest-public-sector read more

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KEYNOTE: Drupal CMS Spotlights

Gábor Hojtsy (gábor hojtsy) Kristen Pol (kristen pol) Mike Herchel (mherchel) Bálint Kléri (balintbrews) Scott Falconer (scott-falconer) Jim Birch (thejimbirch) Dive deeper into the latest developments of Drupal CMS and the AI Initiative in a series of lightning talks. The speakers are not only experts in their field, but they are the ones leading each area of development or research. By engaging directly with the experts spearheading these efforts, you’ll have the unique opportunity to join the groundbreaking efforts currently redefining the open-source landscape and play a direct role in building the next generation of the web. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/keynote-drupal-cms-spotlights read more

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Streamlining Content Relevance, Translation, and Migration with a Content Audit tool

Marcelo Hespanhol (mhespanhol) In this session, we will showcase a custom module designed to assist editors with conducting a content audit, including a ROT analysis (Redundant, Outdated, and Trivial) and translation reviews on their website. Periodically performing these analyses is essential for ensuring the relevance of website content, and it is a crucial step during content migration. Our module also leverages AI to evaluate the accuracy of translations for each piece of content, providing a score to help editors maintain consistency across multiple languages. This reduces the risk of discrepancies when one language is updated, ensuring all content remains up-to-date. Based on these reports, editors can choose which content to migrate and which to exclude if it's not relevant to the new site. These selections are integrated into the migration process, ensuring that only the content approved by the client is transferred to the new website. Agenda: - Introductions - Common Challenges - ROT Analysis Report - AI-Powered Translation Review - Content Migration Review - Module Roadmap - Q&A https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/streamlining-content-relevance-translation-and-migration-content-audit-tool read more

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Drupal Association Public Board Meeting

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You can (and should!) build a site template

Andy Giles (andyg5000) Adam G-H (phenaproxima) Site templates are a big deal. They have the potential to open Drupal up to more people than ever by delivering functional and beautiful starter sites. But it's up to the Drupal community to create them. And, as with anything in the Drupal world, there are a few ways to go about it. In this session, we'll cover two main ways to build site templates: * The quick way, which empowers site builders to build on top of Drupal CMS and deliver awesome site templates with minimal coding. * The detailed way, for developers who want to keep their recipes well-organized, cleanly architected, thoroughly tested, and reliable. Through real-world examples and a live demo of our recipe stack, you’ll leave with practical knowledge and the confidence to structure site templates that meet your organization’s needs today while remaining adaptable for the future. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/you-can-and-should-build-site-template read more

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KEYNOTE: Alexandra Bell, The Security Implications of AI

AI technologies are evolving faster than our ability to understand them, much less control them. While these technologies have the potential to improve our quality of life across multiple sectors, it is essential to global security that governments and civil society weigh the both the costs and benefits of AI expansion. From nuclear proliferation to the environment to public health to the global economy, AI can bring hope or wreak havoc. Bell will outline both the threats at hand, as well as how to manage or mitigate those threats. A noted policy expert and former diplomat, she oversees the Bulletin‘s publishing programs, management of the Doomsday Clock, and a growing set of activities around nuclear risk, climate change, and disruptive technologies. Before joining the Bulletin, Alexandra Bell served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Affairs in the Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability (ADS) at the U.S. Department of State. There she managed the Offices of Strategic Stability and Deterrence and Multilateral and Nuclear Affairs. From 2017 to 2021, Bell was the Senior Policy Director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and the Council for a Livable World. Previously, Bell served as a Senior Advisor in the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security and as an Advisor in ADS, then named the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance. Before joining the Department of State in 2010, she worked on nuclear policy issues at the Ploughshares Fund and the Center for American Progress. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/keynote-alexandra-bell-security-implications-ai read more

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Serious Results, Surprisingly Fun: A Playbook for KPI-Driven Digital Transformation

Tiffany Farriss (farriss) Need a little joy right now? This story has it all: success metrics exceeded, meaningful digital transformation, and a team that genuinely enjoyed the journey. As one usability test participant put it: “I can’t wait until this is live!” In this session, we’ll take you behind the scenes of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ two-year effort to digitize and centralize over 9,000 resources from its Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRC)—making vital support more accessible to people across Wisconsin. The result? A transformation that was as measurable as it was meaningful, and as technologically innovative as it was fun. Cross-functional teams from WDHS and Palantir.net collaborated through a highly iterative, human-centered process that prioritized accessibility, measurable outcomes, and joy. We experimented, co-created, and celebrated small wins that added up to big impacts. We’ll share how: - Agile practices and co-creation fostered trust, creativity, and momentum - Continuous feedback loops kept stakeholders engaged and energized - Behavior-driven development (using example mapping) aligned engineers and subject matter experts - A shared sense of purpose helped us navigate complex challenges - KPIs told the story: 664% more resource engagement and 25% longer user engagement times If you’re looking for a roadmap to results—and a reminder that impactful government work can be deeply rewarding—this session is for you. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/serious-results-surprisingly-fun-playbook-kpi-driven-digital-transformation read more

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Security Team Panel

Tim Hestenes Lehnen (hestenet) Greg Knaddison (greggles) The security team will present topics from their work promoting a more secure Drupal project. The team will also talk about how they recruit new members, refinements to their procedures, and what you can do to support Drupal security. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/security-team-panel read more

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Exposing Your Drupal Site’s Unique Content and Features to LLMs with MCP

Joe Shindelar (eojthebrave) Large Language Models like ChatGPT and Claude are increasingly used for search, support, dev tools, and content creation. Out of the box, they can read but not interact with your Drupal sites content and features. Model Context Protocol (MCP) solves this by defining a standard way for LLMs to interact with external data sources and tools. Teaching the LLM to interact with Drupal and perform searches, flag nodes, and more. By the end of this session, you will be able to: * Understand what MCP is and the problems it solves. * Use MCP with Drupal’s entity system, and the evolving suite of MCP related modules to support retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and action execution. * Allow an LLM to authenticate and access member-only content and features. * Explore methods for implementing an MCP server to broker requests between an LLM and Drupal. * Build practical use cases, such as retrieving upcoming events, drafting blog posts from recent content, or generating Drupal modules and code explanations. I’ll illustrate by exposing Drupal docs and Drupalize.Me tutorials to an LLM for more context when generating Drupal code. The focus is on learning how to configure your Drupal site—and its unique data and features—so an LLM can understand and interact with it. This technical session is for developers interested in AI \+ Drupal integration, focusing on building custom MCP servers. This is a rapidly evolving space -- we'll focus on the current options, and the future. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/exposing-your-drupal-sites-unique-content-and-features-llms-mcp read more

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Elevating Drupal Experiences with Vanilla Javascript

Andrés Díaz Soto (adiaz) Maria Annuar (mariannuar) Modern web experiences don’t always require decoupled architectures, complex frameworks, or external libraries like React. In this session we’ll show, using real world examples, how vanilla JavaScript can bring rich and interactive storytelling to Drupal without sacrificing performance or editorial workflow. The tools and techniques we’ll cover can be used to build feature-rich interfaces like: - Parallax slideshows for immersive storytelling - Interactive grids that open content in overlays - Scroll-driven animations for storytelling - Sticky / Scroll-Follow Elements like headers, menus, or sidebars that stick while scrolling. - Transitions and animations to provide an app-like experience in a regular web site - Other interactive and responsive interfaces fully integrated into Drupal We’ll share not only our approach and lessons learned, but also practical ideas for other uses of vanilla Javascript to enhance user experience while keeping sites maintainable, performant, and fully within the Drupal ecosystem. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/elevating-drupal-experiences-vanilla-javascript read more

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Headings the Right Way: Site Building Tips for Accessible Page Content

Mike McCaffrey (mikemccaffrey) For websites to be accessible, content needs to be thoughtfully arranged into sections and navigable by headings, so users can easily scan a page and find the information they are seeking. Ensuring that proper structure can be one of the biggest accessibility challenges for a Drupal site, with many pages ending up with improperly nested heading levels, sections without explicit headings, or regular text that is styled like headings, but missing the proper semantic markup needed by screen readers. At Kalamuna, we are passionate about building Drupal sites that empower and encourage editors to properly structure their content and provide the headings needed for easy navigation (and passing accessibility scans). Whether content on your site is managed using Field Groups, Twig templates, Paragraphs, Layout Builder, Canvas, or just one big WYSIWYG field, we have tips for how to set things up in a way will result in far more accessible content and much happier users. https://events.drupal.org/chicago2026/session/headings-right-way-site-building-tips-accessible-page-content read more

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Responding to Drupal Enquiries with a Community-First Mindset

This is a guest post from the team at Zoocha, a Gold Drupal Certified Partner with offices in the United Kingdom, Spain, Brazil, and the United States.

As Drupal agencies, we're fortunate to benefit from a vibrant ecosystem that generates awareness, interest, and opportunities for all of us. At Zoocha we receive inbound enquiries from a variety of sources. Whether they arrive via Drupal AI, Drupal CMS, a community recommendation, a Drupal event, or direct through our site, every enquiry often represents something important: a person taking their first step towards our community.

Not every lead is a project.
Not every lead has a budget.
Not every lead is ready to buy.

But they always deserve a meaningful response.

The First Impression of Drupal

When someone reaches out to a Drupal agency, they're rarely just evaluating that agency, they’re more often than not seeking to engage with Drupal itself. For many prospective clients, they may not know the difference between Drupal, the Drupal Association, Drupal CMS, an implementation partner, a hosting provider, or the wider open source community. They simply know they've heard about Drupal and are looking for guidance.

The response they receive helps shape their perception of the entire ecosystem. If their first interaction feels dismissive, transactional, or overly focused on qualification, they may walk away believing that's what the Drupal community is like. If their first interaction is friendly and genuine, they leave with a very different impression.

Resist the Urge to Qualify Too Early

Most agencies have some form of qualification process. It's sensible, and so do we. Time is valuable, and we know not every conversation will become a project.

However, there is a difference between understanding someone's needs and interrogating them. We've all seen responses that immediately ask:

What's your budget?
What's your timeline?
Have you secured funding?
How many pages does the site need?
Can you complete this requirements questionnaire?

While those questions have their place, they are rarely the most important thing during an initial conversation. Many prospects simply don't know the answers yet.

Some are conducting research. Some are exploring options. Some are trying to understand whether Drupal is even the right fit. At this stage, what they often need most is guidance.

Be Helpful Without Expectation

One of the most effective approaches we've found at Zoocha is to assume that the first conversation may never lead to a sale. That does sound counterintuitive for a commercial organisation, but it changes the nature of the interaction. Instead of trying to move the conversation towards a proposal as quickly as possible, we focus on being useful. That might mean:

Answering questions about Drupal CMS
Explaining how Drupal compares to other platforms
Pointing someone towards community resources
Offering advice on procurement approaches
Helping clarify requirements
Suggesting next steps, even if they don't directly involve us

Sometimes that conversation ends there, and that's ok. The contact doesn't leave empty handed. They leave with a positive impression of who we are in the Drupal community.

The Long-Term Value of Community-First Thinking

Interestingly, some of our most successful client relationships started with conversations that had no immediate commercial outcome. We've had early exchanges that were little more than an idea, with individuals facing a specific challenge and just looking to find out if they're even in the right place with Drupal. After a person-first conversation, they disappeared. But a few months, or even a year, later, they came back, and what began as a casual enquiry became a long-term client partnership.

This didn't happen because we had the best sales team or process. It happened because we prioritised human connection over a fast sale.

Open Source Values Apply to Business Development Too

Drupal has always been built around principles of collaboration, openness, and knowledge sharing, these values really shouldn't stop at code contributions. They can also shape how we engage with prospective users of the platform. When we answer questions generously, share expertise freely, and help organisations make informed decisions, we're strengthening confidence in Drupal itself.

Even if a particular opportunity never becomes a client engagement, the person on the other end of that conversation is left with a positive impression of the community. That's good for all of us!

Conclusion

The next time a speculative Drupal enquiry lands in your inbox, try viewing it differently. Consider simply asking, "How can we actually help this person?" The answer might only require a short email, a useful link, or a brief conversation, and yes, the immediate commercial return is likely to be zero. But the long-term return, for your agency and for the Drupal ecosystem, can be significant.

Every first interaction is an opportunity to demonstrate what makes the Drupal community different. Let's make sure it's a positive one.

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The work that just happens: the DA Insider for July 2026

This post is adapted from the DA Insider, the Drupal Association's monthly newsletter. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox each month.

A note from our interim CEO

Dear Drupal community,

Open source hums along on the work that just gets done. As I step into the interim CEO seat, I'm making a point to notice the sheer volume of work powering this ecosystem, from the DA and beyond. Here's some of what has come together in the past month:

Our engineering team migrated hundreds of projects to GitLab, security issues included, and kicked off an RFP to make launching a Drupal site dead simple.
DrupalCon Rotterdam is ready and in the homestretch.
The DrupalCon Orlando call for speakers opened August 4. If the event converts even half the enthusiasm of the local team (or the cuteness of Bytes the Gator), it's going to be one to remember.
We're building a new front door to introduce Drupal to new audiences and evaluators, and we're looking for help.
The community has 14 global events dropping this August and partnership groundwork under way in Burkina Faso.
Nominations are open for the Women in Drupal Award, an honor I was humbled to receive back in 2023.

My goal as interim CEO is straightforward: make sure the Association's foundation is resilient enough to support all this energy. The first step is helping all of us notice and appreciate the work that already "just happens."

I hope you enjoy this month's newsletter and everything everyone's been building. And one final note: board elections are open. Please vote.

Tiffany Farriss Interim CEO

Vote in the 2026 At-Large Board Election — closes 14 August

If you're a Ripple Maker, your ballot arrived by email from Helios Voting on 22 July. Voting closes 14 August 2026 at 23:59 UTC, so there's still time to get to know the candidates: read their profiles and leave questions on the election details page, catch the Open Community Forum recording on our YouTube channel, or revisit the async conversation in #drupal-association on Drupal Slack. Every vote counts — make yours matter.

DrupalCon Rotterdam is in the homestretch

DrupalCon Rotterdam 2026 is ready. Join the global Drupal community for four days of learning, collaboration, and connection — explore the program, meet the speakers, and start planning your experience. Secure your ticket now.

DrupalCon Orlando 2027: Call for Speakers is open

The DrupalCon Orlando 2027 Call for Speakers opened 4 August and closes 20 October 2026, with some notable changes this year:

A more focused program with fewer concurrent sessions and an emphasis on high-quality, impactful content. Updated session tracks reflecting the evolving Drupal ecosystem. And a new pathway for first-time speakers: if you've never spoken at a DrupalCon, DrupalCamp, or other Drupal event, you can submit to the new Poster Session — selected presenters showcase their work at the Monday Welcome Reception and present a 10-minute session on the Lightning Stage.

And keep an eye out for Bytes the Gator, the DrupalCon Orlando mascot, who'll be visiting Drupal events around the world between now and March 2027 — with a chance to win a free registration to DrupalCon Orlando 2027 along the way.

Celebrate the women shaping Drupal's future

Nominations are open for the Women in Drupal Award, sponsored by Jakala, recognising women whose work strengthens the Drupal community — in the projects they build, the teams they support, the ideas they bring forward, and the space they create for others to grow. Know someone whose contribution deserves recognition? Submit a nomination.

Drupal Steward: extra time when it matters most

When highly critical vulnerabilities emerge — like SA-CORE-2026-004, a SQL injection in Drupal core that anonymous users can trigger — every minute matters. Drupal Steward is a security service from the Drupal Association that gives you extra time to respond before vulnerabilities can be widely exploited: early notification of highly critical issues, recommended WAF mitigation rules, and access to security expertise, in coordinated collaboration with the Drupal Security Team. It's available in a Community Tier for smaller site portfolios, plus Small, Mid-Size & Enterprise tiers for organisations that want full control. Referral incentives are available for Drupal Certified Partners.

Behind the scenes with the engineering team

The migration of projects to GitLab issues continues — including security issues and hundreds of Ripple Maker projects — with GitLab soon to be enabled by default for all new projects, alongside updated contribution docs and a new custom commands reference. The team has also kicked off a collaboration with Alpha-Omega through their Security Engineer in Residence program to triage and respond to the growing wave of AI-generated security reports. And an RFP is under way for the Drupal Site Template Marketplace, focused on closing the last mile from template selection to live hosted site.

Help build Drupal's new front door

We're building a dedicated product marketing site for Drupal — a purpose-built, marketing-led site designed to reach the people who haven't heard of Drupal yet: marketers, IT directors, and enterprise decision-makers evaluating CMS platforms.

High-priority tasks are being added to the promote_drupal project on GitLab — real, scoped pieces of design, content, video, and strategy work with significant contribution credits attached, with more added on a rolling basis. If something catches your eye, reach out to Ryan Witcombe at ryan.witcombe@association.drupal.org or @RyanWitcombe on Drupal Slack.

A milestone for open source in West Africa

On 15 July, the Drupal Burkina Faso Association, led by its president Seferiba Salif Soulama, met with Burkina Faso's Minister of Digital Transition, Dr. Aminata Zerbo/Sabane, to explore how Drupal can support the country's digital future. The meeting marks a significant step toward a formal partnership between the Ministry and the Drupal Burkina Faso Association, with Drupal at the heart of Burkina Faso's digital modernisation agenda.

This is what open source looks like in action: communities, governments, and technology coming together to build something that belongs to everyone. Read the full story.

One more thing: The AI Byte

The Drupal AI Initiative team has launched The AI Byte, a monthly LinkedIn newsletter curating the best content across the web about Drupal AI — new capabilities, case studies, events, and webinars. Subscribe on LinkedIn.

This roundup is adapted from the DA Insider, the Drupal Association's monthly newsletter. Want it in your inbox? Subscribe to email communications and browse previous editions.

AI was used to help adapt this newsletter into a blog post. It was reviewed and edited by Drupal Association staff before publishing.

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Drupal Association 2025 Audit and Financial Overview

When I took on the role of Interim CEO, I committed to being direct about our finances and noted that our earlier audits already told much of the story. The board has now released our 2025 audit report, which was provided to the Board of Directors of the Drupal Association on 8 July 2026 and approved on 25 July 2026. It provides additional context and detail, but does not change the overall picture or our path forward.

To be clear, nothing in this audit means any of the services the project depends on are at risk. What this audit does is help us to understand the status quo so that we can take appropriate action moving forward.

The DA Has Been Operating With a Structural Deficit

The DA spent about $451,000 more on operations than we brought in last year (2025), and that followed a larger shortfall the year before ($923,000).

Those two years are not cleanly comparable, because the 2025 audit also restates our previously audited 2024 results. Our auditors determined that about $353,000 of membership revenue had been recognized in 2024 that should instead have been allocated to 2025, when it was actually earned. This was a non-cash correction to our books: no money changed hands, and nothing was lost or misspent.

Together, 2024 and 2025 produced a combined shortfall of about $1.15M, which averages roughly $573,000 a year. Our current forecast puts 2026 on the same path.

Our cash reserves (the unrestricted funds we can actually spend on operations) have decreased by about 60% since the end of 2022, to roughly $960,000, which represents 2.3 months of operating expenses. Board policy sets a six-month target and a three-month reserve minimum. 2025 is the first year since 2019 that the DA has failed to meet the minimum. The DA remains a going concern and is not in danger of becoming insolvent, but it is time for action.

Revenue Growth Has Not Covered the Costs of our Strategic Investments

Coming out of 2022 with strong reserves, the board approved a three-year strategic plan on 6 June 2023 and chose to put some of its surplus toward ambitious, community-requested investments in marketing and project support. Funding strategic growth is how excess reserves are best leveraged.

These investments have had a measurable impact:

Contributions to Drupal strategic product innovation tripled, reaching 211,037 organizational credits in 2025, a 54% increase over 2024.
We reached 106 Drupal Certified Partners under enhanced "maker" requirements, roughly double the 2022 figure.
43 people were brought into Drupal leadership roles for the first time, against a goal of 38.
We adopted and executed a go-to-market plan for the launch of Drupal CMS, and built marketing capacity inside the DA for the first time.

However, the sustainability of these efforts long-term was tied to a goal which we did not meet:

Increase Drupal Association total revenues by 3X, from $3.49M in 2022 to $10.5M in 2026 to better support mission-driven activities.

Our reported revenue did grow about 25% between 2022 and 2025. While 2025 is one of our largest revenue years on record, this figure is misleading, because most of the growth is in non-monetary services provided in trade (described in more detail below). Putting that aside, the Association’s cash revenue grew 5% over three years while out-of-pocket costs grew 27%.

The gap is paid for out of our reserves. Reserves are the right instrument for starting something and the wrong instrument for running it. Funding our strategic initiatives from reserves was the right decision for the duration of the strategic plan, but while that plan ended last year, the work has continued without a viable funding plan.

Marketing and project support are precisely the kind of mission-aligned work the DA should be doing. So the task in front of us is to fund it properly: each program examined discretely, with its own revenue plan, and held to revenue neutrality now that it has moved out of pilot and into operations.

Infrastructure Costs are Rising (and Invisible)

In 2022 we spent $1.3M running Drupal.org (the Web site, composer endpoints, GitLab, CI, authentication, and the global CDN), and in 2025 we spent $2.1M. That is up 61% in three years. It is the Drupal Association's single largest cost, and it has no direct funding mechanism. Every organization that uses Drupal relies on this infrastructure, but none of them are asked to pay for it, because we have never built a way for them to.

For most of Drupal's history that did not matter, because the surplus revenue from DrupalCon covered the costs of Drupal.org. However, since 2022 the DrupalCon surplus has fallen from about $994,000 to about $227,000. While event costs have continued to increase since we resumed in-person events, event revenue has gone down.

This means that we are increasingly relying on the generosity of a handful of vendors and partners who provide services for free or in trade for sponsorship placements. That generosity has grown from $249,249 in 2022 to $1,011,995 in 2025 and now covers nearly half of what we spend on Drupal.org. These services in trade and donated services have not reported in our monthly reports because they were “non-cash”; they appeared only at audit.

Share of what we spend on Drupal.org	2022	2025
Covered by DrupalCon surplus	76%	11%↓
Covered by services in trade, gratis	19%	48%↑
Covered by general operating revenue	4%	41%↑

The remainder of the infrastructure spending gap must be paid for out of general operating revenue, and failing that, out of reserves. These costs increased from $56,825 in 2022 to $859,384 in 2025.

It is also important to note that these numbers do not account for work that is deferred because the funding is not there to pay for it. This technical debt does not appear on any of our financial statements, but is a growing liability that will need to be paid for at some point.

The bottom line is that while our cash spending on infrastructure has remained steady, we have a rising essential cost that currently has no funding model attached to it yet.

Unpacking the Timeline

The fiscal year 2024 closed 31 December 2024. The initial audit for 2024 was released in July 2025 showing $570,000 of deficit. Then in July 2026, it was restated downward to a $923,000 deficit as part of the 2025 audit.

While the Drupal Association CEO is accountable for the organization’s day-to-day operations, the board provides oversight over the organization’s budget and finances. This oversight requires timely, accurate, and consistent financial reporting.

The monthly reports that the board’s Finance Committee reviewed and the audited statements published 6 months after the year close were prepared on different bases, with nothing reconciling the two. The Finance Committee struggled to get consistent answers or clarity about what individual figures included. In April 2026, Finance Committee asked our auditors to examine the reporting revenue recognition practices directly. That request is what produced the restatement of 2024 as part of the 2025 audit. This also explains how long it took to know where we stood in 2024.

The Path Forward

The responsible approach is to act now, while we can still make changes on our own terms rather than in a crisis. Some of this is already underway and the rest has dates attached to it.

As Interim CEO, I am operationally accountable to make sure that the board has access to an annual budget that is actively managed with variances mitigated; receives consistent, contextualized and timely financial reports; and that robust internal controls and workflows are in place. This clarity will give the Finance Committee and the board what they need to exercise proper oversight within the policy guardrails they have set.

Our internal reporting will be reconciled to audit-basis accounting, so that the figures the board governs against during the year are as close as possible to the ones we publish after it; non-cash arrangements will be recorded as they occur rather than at year end; and our reserve position will be reported on a single defined basis, against both policy thresholds, every period.

Drupal.org will be presented as a program with a cost that the Drupal Association is accountable for funding. The Association needs a durable way to fund Drupal.org rather than the patchwork indirect one we have now. These issues are not unique to Drupal, and I am looking forward to hearing others' thoughts, but be assured that I do not intend to solve a funding problem by reducing the services the community relies on.

Within the coming months, I will publish:

What each part of our work actually costs and how it is funded
The full costs of Drupal.org as a measurable figure, which will be the first time anyone, including the board, will have seen that number
An updated 2026 forecast and preliminary mitigation plan

This fall, I will prepare a two-year 2027-2028 Operating Budget with the Finance Committee that the board will be able to review and approve before the end of the year.

Nothing about the 2025 audit changes our commitment, our mission or the direction we need to go. It just adds a little urgency. I am focused on co-creating a financial model where the work sustaining Drupal rests on a foundation that is resilient and sustainable for the next long-term CEO.

File attachments:

2025 Drupal Audited Financial Statements - FINAL.pdf

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Move Fast, Stay On-Brand: How Drupal AI Delivers Both

Author: Will Huggins

In our previous blog posts, we’ve talked about how our growing ecosystem — now backed by 32 global partner organisations and a dedicated delivery team — is structured to build a secure, stable, and highly integrable AI-native digital experience platform.

So what does this mean for your day-to-day digital communications and marketing operations? How do you translate this into improved experiences for your audience, higher conversion rates, and reduced cost?

To win in the age of AI, digital leaders don’t just need faster ways to generate content or build great digital experiences. They need a platform that helps them move at maximum speed, while still maintaining the highest quality and content standards.

Here is an inside look at the key features on the Drupal AI 2026 roadmap, focused on the outcomes that matter most to digital communications and marketing teams: speed, brand safety, and measurable ROI.

"Prompt-to-Published" Page Building (Using Your Real Design System)

Many AI-powered page builders on the market suffer from what digital leaders call "AI Slop": random, messy, raw HTML blocks based on generic AI models. These pages can break your site's layout, look wildly off-brand, fail accessibility standards, and create the dreaded ‘technical debt’ for your developers to clean up.

Drupal AI’s upcoming Canvas AI Page Builder operates under a completely different paradigm. It is natively component-aware.

You can feed Canvas AI a marketing brief, a PDF, or even a screenshot. Instead of writing custom code, the AI inspects your design system, selects the most relevant, pre-approved, accessible brand components, places them in a logical conversion layout, and drafts campaign-specific copy directly within them. Your marketing team can go from a brief to a beautifully structured, accessible landing page in minutes. You get complete visual design freedom without ever breaking brand guidelines or waiting in a developer’s queue.

The Brand Guardrail: Localised Nuance & Centralised Brand Voice

A major anxiety for marketing teams is brand dilution. If your team is using disconnected AI tools, your brand voice can quickly fragment, sounding professional on one page and generic on another.

Drupal AI solves this by embedding a centralised Context Control Centre directly into the CMS. This serves as the single source of truth for your brand's identity and governance rules.

Authored Context: You define your style guides, brand vocabulary, audience personas, and strict regulatory boundaries (such as HIPAA, GDPR, or accessibility standards) once. Every AI-assisted content generation task automatically adheres to these guardrails.
Hyper-Local Translation: For global marketing departments, translation is rarely word-for-word. Under the 2026 roadmap, Drupal AI's translation workflows don't just translate text; they analyse local nuance and adapt your localised content to fit regional cultural contexts while strictly preserving your core brand voice.

You can scale your global content footprint across multiple regions and channels, confident that every single piece of copy, everywhere, sounds exactly like you.

Closed-Loop Performance: Self-Optimizing Digital Experiences

Today, your content lives in the CMS, but your performance data is trapped inside a web analytics dashboard (like Google Analytics or Matomo), and the two systems rarely talk to each other. As a result, marketing teams often miss trends, fail to optimise low-performing pages, and struggle to scale what actually works.

Drupal AI is built to close this loop by bringing performance intelligence directly into the content creation interface.

Intelligent Website Improvements: Drupal AI integrates directly with your analytics platform. Instead of merely showing you a static traffic report, background AI agents analyse user journeys and conversion drops.
Actionable Optimisations: If a high-value landing page is underperforming, the AI agent automatically flags it and proposes concrete layout or copy optimisations — such as a more compelling call-to-action or a tighter, clearer headline — based on what is historically proven to convert.

No more digging through dashboards to find what's not working. Your website becomes a living, self-optimising engine, learning what works best for your audience and handing ready-to-publish optimisations directly to your content editors, bridging the gap between data and action.

Built-In Governance: Keeping Humans (and IT) Firmly in the Loop

Speed is meaningless if your IT department or compliance team vetoes your tools due to security risks. To build an AI platform organisations can trust, Drupal AI treats security and governance as structural priorities, not afterthought add-ons.

Unlike lightweight SaaS tools that operate outside of your corporate governance, Drupal AI operates entirely within your existing approval workflows and editorial permissions.

Human-in-the-Loop Safeguards: AI agents can propose layouts, drafts, and SEO metadata, but they cannot publish them autonomously. Every change is staged in a revision branch, allowing your marketing managers to review, edit, or reject changes before they ever go live.
Data Sovereignty and Security: Advanced security filters automatically sanitise and strip sensitive customer or corporate data before it is ever sent to an external Large Language Model (LLM). This shields your organisation from data leaks and compliance breaches.

This means you get the agility of generative AI backed by enterprise-grade, auditable, secure workflows: the kind of governance IT teams look for.

Own Your Digital Destination

The future of digital experience is being built on open-source, model-agnostic foundations. By giving your marketing team visual page building, centralised brand context, and performance-driven optimisation within an enterprise-grade secure environment, Drupal AI is paving the way for digital teams to operate at maximum velocity with zero brand risk.

The future of open-source digital experience is being built right now. If your digital product or content marketing teams are ready to experience what is possible today, explore our progress and try the live demo.

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Drupal AI Learners Club - 2026-07-31 - Getting AI to Read Your Docs with Jürgen Haas

Most of us have asked an AI assistant a question about a tool, only to get a confident, plausible-sounding wrong answer. Jürgen Haas has spent the last several months tackling that problem head-on for ECA — building out an MCP server, an agent skill, and a full documentation overhaul so that when you ask AI for help building an ECA model, it actually knows what it's talking about. Jürgen will walk us through: What MCP actually is and how it lets AI agents query live, structured documentation instead of guessing from stale training data A live show-and-tell using the ECA Guide as the example — what it looks like when an AI assistant can genuinely help you build a workflow model from natural language Other "robot-findable" docs strategies (llms.txt, agent skills, structured markdown, etc.) and an honest discussion of what's actually paying off versus what's still unproven If you maintain documentation for a module, product, or team wiki and you're wondering whether it's time to make it AI-legible — this is the session for you. Resources from this talk: https://www.drupal.org/docs/develop/development-tools/ai-coding-tools-for-drupal-development/drupal-ai-learners-club-sessions/2026-07-31-%E2%80%94-getting-ai-to-actually-read-your-docs-so-it-can-help-you-build read more

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Dries Buytaert talks about the value of experimenting with AI

Dries Buytaert, project lead for Drupal, talks about the value of experimenting with AI through his Drupal Digests project, contributing to Drupal core issues, and more. read more

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Drupal AI Learners Club: What Did the AI Just Do? Turning Coding Sessions into Learning Trails

You let the AI write the code — but do you understand what it built, and why? Join us for a show-and-tell with Owen Bush (Senior Developer at Lullabot), creator of Decodie — an AI learning companion that turns every coding session into a structured learning trail. As you code with your agent of choice (Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini CLI, and 70+ others), Decodie captures the why behind each decision — patterns used, trade-offs made, alternatives passed over — so you can actually learn from what the AI wrote. Owen will demo the full ecosystem: agent skills, a VSCode extension, a local web UI with lessons and progress tracking, plus a GitHub Action and bot for automatic PR analysis. Come for the demo, stay for the Q&A. read more

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Drupal Association Community Election 2026: Community forum with the candidates

This is a recording of our July 15th community forum with the candidates for the 2026 Community Election for one of the two Director-at-Large positions that hold alternating 2 year terms. This is being supported by a 24 hour asynchronous Slack Q&A with candidates starting on July 16th in Drupal Slack #drupal-association. drupal.org/join-slack to join read more

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Drupal AI Learners Club — How to Enhance Drupal Development with AI with Mateu Aguiló Bosch (e0ipso)

A deeper-dive session from Mateu Aguiló Bosch (e0ipso) on getting your AI coding harness — Claude, Codex, or whatever you're running — to adapt to your own codebase instead of working against it. Mateu will get into improving context management and building long-term project memory, so your tools hold onto what actually matters across a project rather than starting cold every session. Topics to be covered include: adapting your AI harness to an existing codebase, context management strategies, and long-term project memory. RSVP for upcoming Drupal AI Learners Club sessions on Luma: https://luma.com/drupal-ai read more

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Drupal AI Learners Club: Know Before You Owe

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How Southwark Council uses AI and open source software to transform PDF Publishing in Drupal

Hear directly from the team behind an award-winning AI solution built for local government. What does genuinely useful AI in public services look like? Not a concept, not a pilot, but a working solution that saves hours of manual work, improves accessibility, and puts better content in front of citizens faster. Southwark Council's AI-powered PDF importer for Drupal is exactly that, and it won the prestigious Digital Leaders AI Impact Award 2026. Host: James Hall, Product Lead for Websites at Everyone TV Guest: Angie Forson, Web and Digital Program Lead at Southwark Council Download LocalGov Publications Importer: https://www.drupal.org/project/localgov_publications_importer Learn more about Drupal AI: https://www.drupal.org/ai More about the problem solved Manual PDF conversion has long been one of the most time-consuming tasks facing council web teams. Converting a single document can take hours. Multiply that across thousands of PDFs and the burden becomes significant, both in staff time and in the delay it creates before citizens can access accurate, accessible information. The Southwark team, working with their partners at Chicken, built an AI-powered importer for the LocalGov Drupal Publication Module that reduces that process to minutes, often under one minute. How it works Each PDF passes through a three-step pipeline: Extract - a PDF parser pulls the raw content from the document Transform - AI converts it to properly structured, accessible HTML with logical pagination Save - clean HTML pages are ready to review and publish directly in Drupal The result is an HTML representation of the PDF content, saved into a Drupal Publication and ready for review before going live. Every import is logged, so errors can be identified and resolved efficiently. The module uses a plugin architecture, meaning each step in the pipeline can be swapped out. Councils can use different extractors, AI models, or output to different Drupal content types, making the solution adaptable to a wide range of content and operational requirements. Built the right way The team delivered this project with an agile, user-centred approach, continuously refining requirements to ensure the tool meets real user needs rather than simply ticking a technical specification. "This project is a great example of AI working alongside and empowering content creators, and Drupal as a platform supports this really well." - Farez Rahman, Drupal Developer "I'm excited about the impact this product will have, not just for our users, but also in transforming how we design, build, and create content internally. We're shaping a future where services start with HTML-first thinking." - Evelyn Francourt, User Experience Lead Why this matters beyond Southwark Local government teams across the country face the same challenge. This solution, built on open source Drupal and the LocalGov Drupal ecosystem, is designed to be shared, not kept in one place. If your organisation publishes PDFs, manages large volumes of content, or is exploring where AI can deliver practical value without unnecessary complexity, this webinar is for you. read more

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Live Vibing: Let's port webchick's D7 blog to Drupal CMS with Fable LOL NOPE (Round 2 😅)

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Live Vibing: Using Claude Dynamic Workflows to upgrade webchick's old, crusty D7 blog (Part 1)

In this Drupal AI Learners Club session, Angie "webchick" Byron attempts a live, no-safety-net migration of her ancient Drupal 7 personal site (webchick.net) to Drupal CMS using Claude Code — with a roomful of community experts watching and heckling in the best possible way.What starts as a planning exercise turns into a real-world tour of agentic coding: the good, the funny, and the "even when you think you've sorted out access, you haven't." Part 2 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoD0YuEy-ks 0:00 Welcome & intros (todo) 27:12 Inheriting a crusty D7 site: why you plan first 27:50 Grounding Claude in current Drupal facts (not training data) 28:41 Surprise: core migrate modules deprecated/removed in D12 30:04 Context windows + clearing context after planning 31:34 Picking a path: Drupal CMS rebuild vs big-bang vs hybrid 34:04 The plan: fresh Drupal CMS install + targeted D7 migrations 36:04 Rewind, fork, and branch: managing context (and cost) 38:04 Pro tip: log in to use your subscription instead of API tokens 39:34 Reading the plan: migration state file, tiered models, gates 42:04 Claude doesn't know its own new feature (dynamic workflows) 45:04 What dynamic workflows actually are + fixing the plan 46:34 Time to YOLO the plan: auto mode + guardrails 47:34 The "$1,000?!" jump scare (it was $1.00) 49:04 Security check-in with Marlene: prompt injection & separation 52:04 Local stack decisions: DDEV, Docker, Composer 56:04 Handing off SSH creds safely (never paste secrets in chat) 58:34 Playwright & browser automation: impersonating yourself online 1:02:04 Opting out of training on your data + privacy settings 1:05:04 What makes a good agent skill + AI Best Practices 1:09:04 Docker won't cooperate: the privileged port battle 1:14:04 Memories vs skills: fixing it for you vs everybody 1:16:04 Getting SSH working: keys, the "!" escape, ssh-agent 1:25:04 Handing off to a second agent via handoff.md 1:32:04 Wrapping up: what we learned + Part 2 teaser Highlights: Why planning mode matters before you let an agent YOLO a big job Grounding the agent in current Drupal facts vs. its training cutoff — core's migrate modules are deprecated/removed in D12 and NOT moving to contrib The strategic case for landing on Drupal 11 + Drupal CMS now, while D7 source plugins still exist Claude not knowing about its own newly-shipped dynamic workflows feature until pointed at the docs — verify everything! Context management: rewind, fork, branch, and clearing context to stay lean (and cheap) The "$1,000?!" jump scare (spoiler: it was $1.00 — read your decimal points, friends) Playwright browser automation, and why impersonating yourself on drupal.org to auto-post is probably against the rules Marlene's security perspective on prompt injection and keeping research/coding agents separated Why you should NEVER paste private keys or SSH creds into chat — and how to opt out of training on your data A real, unscripted battle with SSH agent / authorized_keys that we did NOT fully solve on camera Agent handoffs: writing a handoff.md to pass state to a second agent Why webchick built AI Best Practices — the "Drupal CMS of agent skills" A Part 2 is planned to pick up where we left off (once that SSH gremlin is sorted). Thanks to Dieter, Marlene, Carlos, Ali, and everyone who hung around late into the night. read more

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Drupal AI Learners Club Livestream

Live streaming sessions from https://luma.com/drupal-ai read more

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Southwark Case Study

This example demonstrates how AI, built into Drupal, is helping people work smarter, connect communities, and communicate with clarity. Find out more about Drupal AI here: https://new.drupal.org/ai read more

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Basel Stadt Case Study

This example demonstrates how AI, built into Drupal, is helping people work smarter, connect communities, and communicate with clarity. Find out more about Drupal AI here: https://new.drupal.org/ai read more

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DB Schenker

This example demonstrates how AI, built into Drupal, is helping people work smarter, connect communities, and communicate with clarity. Find out more about Drupal AI here: https://new.drupal.org/ai read more

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World Cancer Day AI assisted moderation of user generated content using Drupal

For World Cancer Day 2026, the Union for International Cancer Control partnered with 1xINTERNET, who developed and deployed AI-powered moderation to review thousands of personal cancer stories submitted from around the world. This example demonstrates how AI, built into Drupal, is helping people work smarter, connect communities, and communicate with clarity. Find out more about Drupal AI here: https://new.drupal.org/ai read more

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AI Learners Club: Getting Ready to do Cool Stuff with AI in Drupal! — 2026-06-10

A hands-on walk-through from Mike Anello of DrupalEasy on setting up the Drupal AI module — what it includes, how to configure it, and why it's the first step to leveraging AI right inside the Drupal UI. Covers AI providers, default models, logging, external moderation, guardrails, and the AI API explorer — plus a taste of what's possible with the AI CKEditor submodule. read more

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Quick Wins with Drupal AI for accessibility: Tone changes from within CKEditor

A demonstration of how content can be re-written from within Drupal's editor for a different audience. In this example we rewrite the content of an article to be easily understood by a reader in grade 2 of the US school system. Learn more about Drupal AI: http://drupal.org/ai/ read more

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Quick Wins with Drupal AI for accessibility: Content Translation

A demonstration of the editor workflow for quickly translating content into multiple languages using AI. In this example we translate an article from English to Portuguese. Learn more about Drupal AI: http://drupal.org/ai/ read more

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Quick Wins with Drupal AI for accessibility: Alt Text Generation

A demonstration of how easy it is for content editors to generate image alt text using AI. In this example we create useful alt text for use by screen readers and search engines. Learn more about Drupal AI: http://drupal.org/ai/ read more

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Drupal AI Learners Club: Claude Design

Aidan Foster introduces Claude Design, Anthropic's new AI-assisted design tool, to vibe design web user interfaces, how the Drupal AI UX initiative uses it for prototyping and design discussion, and tips and pitfalls to be aware of. read more

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Beyond Chatbots: Creating Smarter, Personalized Experiences with AG-UI

This video is part of a series https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpeDXSh4nHjSZBJ76O07Z9cafBpLPkhBL recorded at Drupal AI Summit New York City 2026. To learn more about Drupal AI visit https://www.drupal.org/ai. Discover more Drupal AI events in your region https://www.drupal.org/about/ai/events John Tran builds innovative technical solutions for global brands, helping organizations get real value from their technology while staying focused on business goals. Before ImageX, he founded a technical agency serving Electronic Arts and later led technology at a WPP agency supporting major clients. Discover how Drupal can evolve beyond chatbots into a collaborative, AI-powered experience platform with AG-UI. This session shows how interactive AI agents can work directly within your Drupal site to support content teams, streamline workflows, and deliver more personalized, intuitive experiences for users, without adding technical complexity. We are witnessing a fundamental shift in how businesses utilize Artificial Intelligence. The era of simple, text-based chatbots is ending. In its place, a new generation of "AI Agents" is emerging—intelligent digital assistants capable of reasoning, using tools, and collaborating with humans in real-time to customize content experiences. For Drupal site owners, marketers, and content teams, this opens up a powerful opportunity. Imagine your website becoming a collaborative workspace, where AI collaborates with your visitors to personalize experiences in real time as they interact with your content. This session will introduce a new approach to bringing these interactive AI assistants into Drupal using a component-based toolkit built on AG-UI. While the technology runs behind the scenes, the experience is designed to feel natural and intuitive, AI that is embedded into your end user content experience, rather than in a disconnected pop-up. We will demonstrate how this custom toolkit bridges the gap between complex AI logic and the intuitive Drupal user experience you expect. read more

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Why Private AI Matters: Data Sovereignty as the Foundation for Trustworthy AI on the Open Web

This video is part of a series https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpeDXSh4nHjSZBJ76O07Z9cafBpLPkhBL recorded at Drupal AI Summit New York City 2026. To learn more about Drupal AI visit https://www.drupal.org/ai. Discover more Drupal AI events in your region https://www.drupal.org/about/ai/events Matthew Saunders is an AI Ambassador at amazee.io and a long-time Drupal leader with two decades of contribution. He helps organizations adopt practical, secure AI within Drupal, with a focus on data sovereignty, enterprise delivery, and neuro-inclusive design. As organizations race to integrate AI into their digital platforms, a critical question is being overlooked: who actually controls the data? Today, 72% of organizations rank data privacy as their top AI concern, 44% have experienced sensitive data leaking into AI systems, and shadow AI is spreading unchecked. For enterprises running on open-source platforms like Drupal, the answer is not to avoid AI but to deploy it on infrastructure where data never leaves organizational control. This session covers the three pillars of AI sovereignty — data, model, and operational sovereignty — and shows how open-source foundations like Drupal and Kubernetes make it possible to run AI without vendor lock-in, without cross-border data risk, and without sacrificing compliance. Drawing on real-world deployment patterns including private LLM proxies, region-locked vector databases, and open-source Drupal AI provider integrations, this talk connects the strategic "why" to the engineering "how." Whether you are evaluating AI architecture, managing shadow AI risk, or building AI features into Drupal responsibly, you will leave with a clear framework for deploying AI that is powerful, auditable, and fully under your control. read more

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Drupal CMS AI - No-code Visual AI Agent builder - Future of Agents

This video is part of a series https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpeDXSh4nHjSZBJ76O07Z9cafBpLPkhBL recorded at Drupal AI Summit New York City 2026. To learn more about Drupal AI visit https://www.drupal.org/ai. Discover more Drupal AI events in your region https://www.drupal.org/about/ai/events James Abrahams is the cofounder of FreelyGive, a technology agency specialising in native Drupal CRM and business applications. He is a thought leader in Drupal AI and plays a key role in shaping the direction of AI within the platform, contributing from a strategic and product perspective. Flowdrop UI for Agents is an intuitive visual interface layer for designing, building and managing AI agents, most often used within Drupal’s AI ecosystem. It is not an AI model in its own right, but an orchestration and design environment that sits above agent infrastructure, making complex workflows more accessible and manageable. In this session, Jamie will demonstrate Flowdrop in practice, showing how it enables integration with external systems via MCP and supports the creation of AI agents using agent-driven approaches. The focus will be on how teams can move from concept to working implementations with greater clarity and control. Looking ahead, the session will explore how agent-driven systems are beginning to generate and coordinate other agents, extending the reach of Drupal’s capabilities through AI. Tools such as Claude Code are already enabling near end to end automation, from Figma designs through to fully functioning Drupal sites and migrations. The next phase is likely to bring this level of orchestration directly into Drupal itself. Attendees will leave with a clear view of current innovation within Drupal AI and a considered perspective on how these developments may evolve. read more

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Beyond the Prompt: Operationalizing the Human–AI Partnership as a Digital Teammate in Drupal

This video is part of a series https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpeDXSh4nHjSZBJ76O07Z9cafBpLPkhBL recorded at Drupal AI Summit New York City 2026. To learn more about Drupal AI visit https://www.drupal.org/ai. Discover more Drupal AI events in your region https://www.drupal.org/about/ai/events John Doyle is CEO of Digital Polygon, a WebOps agency focused on open source. With 18+ years as a software architect, he leads delivery of scalable, enterprise-grade solutions. He works at the intersection of Drupal and AI, helping organisations move past hype to implement practical automation and WebOps strategies that deliver measurable results. Most organizations are stuck in a loop of AI experimentation that never reaches production. The problem isn’t the models; it’s that we’re trying to build houses on sand. Without structure, governance, and reliable data flows, AI is just a parlor trick. Drupal is often overlooked in the AI conversation, but its greatest strength is exactly what AI needs: a robust, API-first architecture and a mature content model. In this session, I’ll show you how we’re moving past prompts to build digital teammates—AI agents that are governed, measurable, and embedded directly into real-world editorial and marketing workflows. We’ll look at a two-part framework for operationalizing AI in Drupal: Stop experimenting, start systemizing: How to define a digital teammate charter so AI has clear inputs, outputs, and SLAs. Moving Beyond the Sandbox: How to take the logic from your team’s best individual experiments—like custom GPTs or Gems—and bake them directly into Drupal. We’ll talk about how to turn isolated wins into shared, governed, human-in-the-loop workflows that actually move the needle for the entire organization. read more

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How AI helps The European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) be more efficient in a transparent way

This video is part of a series https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpeDXSh4nHjSZBJ76O07Z9cafBpLPkhBL recorded at Drupal AI Summit New York City 2026. To learn more about Drupal AI visit https://www.drupal.org/ai. Discover more Drupal AI events in your region https://www.drupal.org/about/ai/events Jeroen Spitaels is the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) & Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Dropsolid, where he shapes the company's strategic growth initiatives and revenue strategies for its open, AI-driven Digital Experience Platform (DXP). Drawing from his background as a tech entrepreneur and founder, Jeroen leverages extensive experience in business development and international operations to drive innovation and scale the company's market presence. In this talk we'll explain how EPSO (European Personnel Selection Office a.k.a. EU Careers from the European Commission) implemented AI in their online portal. We'll explain the hurdles we went trough, the wins after going live (some obvious, some less obvious). We'll also give some insights in how we make this AI implementation transparent. read more

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AI-native CMS vs vibe coding

This video is part of a series https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpeDXSh4nHjSZBJ76O07Z9cafBpLPkhBL recorded at Drupal AI Summit New York City 2026. To learn more about Drupal AI visit https://www.drupal.org/ai. Discover more Drupal AI events in your region https://www.drupal.org/about/ai/events Kristof Van Tomme is co-founder of Pronovix, where he has spent over a decade building developer portals in Drupal. The company recently joined the Drupal AI Initiative. An active member of the Drupal, Write the Docs, and APIDays communities, he focuses on how AI is reshaping APIs, documentation, and developer portals. Over the years there have been many different technology waves that have changed how teams build developer portals: Static site generators, MACH, or React based applications, a range of open source technologies like Backstage or Docusaurus. Through all these waves content management systems like Drupal have been a fixture, often brought in out of necessity when requirements for the portal reached a certain level of complexity. Now that AI is making it possible for tech writers to vibe code solutions for highly specific complex requirements, is there still a need for a CMS? In this talk I will explore the difference between vibe coded documentation portals and systems that use structured data formats to enable and constrain AI. Using two practical examples from the developer portal world, to help you decide what approach would be better for your use case. read more

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CMS in the post-AI Era: from MCP to Vibecoding

This video is part of a series https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpeDXSh4nHjSZBJ76O07Z9cafBpLPkhBL recorded at Drupal AI Summit New York City 2026. To learn more about Drupal AI visit https://www.drupal.org/ai. Discover more Drupal AI events in your region https://www.drupal.org/about/ai/events Josh Koenig has been a part of the Drupal ecosystem for over 20 years, and has spent his career focused on helping web teams deliver faster, with less stress, and more impact. With the open web being torn apart and reassembled by AI, the role of open source and web teams is more important than ever. The open web is being torn apart and put back together, and the purpose of content management is up for grabs. Who it's for, what it tracks, how it operates — all of this is changing. But AI is also blending in with the rest of the tech. The story is less and less about AI itself, but how it is applied so solve real world problems. As the leading open source framework for structured content, now with a fully functional internal AI subsystem, Drupal can play a much needed role in helping mature organizations use AI to accelerate, without compromising sustainable practices or quality. Drupal can run agents, but it can also be run by agents. With a solid MCP server foundation and provider plugins for all major models, there's a clear path to go from vibe-coded prototype to sustainable production system, including running a scalable and sustainable content production pipeline. read more

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AI-Assisted Site Migrations in Drupal

This video is part of a series https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpeDXSh4nHjSZBJ76O07Z9cafBpLPkhBL recorded at Drupal AI Summit New York City 2026. To learn more about Drupal AI visit https://www.drupal.org/ai. Discover more Drupal AI events in your region https://www.drupal.org/about/ai/events Rob Loach is an open-source architect with nearly two decades of experience, leading research and innovation at Kalamuna. He helps shape AI integration in Drupal as part of the AI Release Management Team, focusing on practical, forward-looking solutions. Migration has always been an important part of the Drupal ecosystem. Whether it be moving from WordPress to Drupal, or importing a bunch of CSV files, the Migrate API provides a robust framework for moving data. It also carries a steep learning curve. read more

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Why Private AI Matters: Data Sovereignty as the Foundation for Trustworthy AI on the Open Web

This video is part of a series https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpeDXSh4nHjSZBJ76O07Z9cafBpLPkhBL recorded at Drupal AI Summit New York City 2026. To learn more about Drupal AI visit https://www.drupal.org/ai. Discover more Drupal AI events in your region https://www.drupal.org/about/ai/events Matthew Saunders is an AI Ambassador at amazee.io and a long-time Drupal leader with two decades of contribution. He helps organizations adopt practical, secure AI within Drupal, with a focus on data sovereignty, enterprise delivery, and neuro-inclusive design. As organizations race to integrate AI into their digital platforms, a critical question is being overlooked: who actually controls the data? Today, 72% of organizations rank data privacy as their top AI concern, 44% have experienced sensitive data leaking into AI systems, and shadow AI is spreading unchecked. For enterprises running on open-source platforms like Drupal, the answer is not to avoid AI but to deploy it on infrastructure where data never leaves organizational control. This session covers the three pillars of AI sovereignty — data, model, and operational sovereignty — and shows how open-source foundations like Drupal and Kubernetes make it possible to run AI without vendor lock-in, without cross-border data risk, and without sacrificing compliance. Drawing on real-world deployment patterns including private LLM proxies, region-locked vector databases, and open-source Drupal AI provider integrations, this talk connects the strategic "why" to the engineering "how." Whether you are evaluating AI architecture, managing shadow AI risk, or building AI features into Drupal responsibly, you will leave with a clear framework for deploying AI that is powerful, auditable, and fully under your control. read more

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Context-driven AI for consistent, compliant, and compelling content - Kristen Pol

This video is part of a series https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpeDXSh4nHjSZBJ76O07Z9cafBpLPkhBL recorded at Drupal AI Summit New York City 2026. To learn more about Drupal AI visit https://www.drupal.org/ai. Discover more Drupal AI events in your region https://www.drupal.org/about/ai/events AI can generate text, designs, and interfaces at lightning speed, but without the right context, results are often off-brand, non-compliant, or just plain meh. Context is the difference between “AI that guesses” and “AI that gets it,” turning outputs into authentic, on-voice, and intentional results. Context Control Center (CCC) provides a single hub to capture and manage your organization’s rules, policies, and guidelines, then map them directly to AI features. Need government compliance, brand consistency, or a specific tone? CCC ensures every AI output aligns with your requirements. Imagine being able to say: “Every article summary must be 3 sentences under 300 characters.” “Never use these restricted words.” “Match accessibility standards automatically.” “Keep the tone at an 8th-grade reading level.” “Always use our brand colors and typography.” Instead of scattered style guides, briefs, or prompts, CCC centralizes these rules so AI results are consistent, compliant, and compelling. In this session, we’ll explore why context is the missing ingredient for meaningful AI, which types of context have the biggest impact, real-world use cases, and how Context Control Center makes it simple to manage and deliver. You’ll leave with practical insights and a clear path to elevating your AI from “meh” to meaningful. read more

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RT @TalkingDrupal: On episode #390, Employee Owned Business with Seth Brown, CEO @lullabot. https://t.co/KiYM6Zwz5C #drupal read more

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Nonprofit Drupal posts: March Drupal for Nonprofits Chat https://t.co/uJq3iqKikr #drupal read more

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Community Working Group posts: Call for creators for crafting future Aaron Winborn Awards https://t.co/JqGX6q9W1M #drupal read more

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Community Working Group posts: Nominations are now open for the 2023 Aaron Winborn Award https://t.co/wrYfMue23T #drupal read more

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The Drop Times: Just Keep Showing Up, and the Job Is Yours: Chris Wells | DrupalCamp NJ https://t.co/FL1c6MdS9Z #drupal read more

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RT @ironstar_io: The 2023 Drupal Local Development Survey has now been translated into French, Japanese, and Traditional Chinese. We are ve… read more

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The 2023 Drupal Local Development Survey has now been translated into French, Japanese, and Traditional Chinese. We are very grateful to @mupsigraphy for her work on this French translation. If you would like to add a translation, please let us know as there's still time! read more

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RT @e14t: Mastering Drupal 9 Layout Builder: A Comprehensive Guide to Effortlessly Customize Your Website's Design #drupal https://t.co/veg… read more

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Mastering Drupal 9 Layout Builder: A Comprehensive Guide to Effortlessly Customize Your Website's Design #drupal https://t.co/vegAGDzSdh read more

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RT @Drupalcameroun: How #Drupal communities on the #African continent can help their governments in their #digitalization process. @_Africa… read more

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Chapter Three: where we celebrate National Pi Day with forward-thinking NextJS and Drupal expertise, and National Potato Chip Day with an unparalleled snacking prowess. What is your favorite chip flavor? 🥧 🍟 🤓#PiDay #PotatoChipDay #drupal #nextjs read more

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Pues me está gustando mucho lo de hacer directos en #twitch sobre desarrollo en #Drupal, le estoy cogiendo el gusto. read more

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Drupal has offered top-notch no-code/low-code site building functionalities long before these two terms even existed. You can learn more about Drupal as a no-code/low-code tool in this @agiledrop article: https://t.co/TDwJn5DT6r #Drupal #NoCode #LowCode https://t.co/tGVQhtdtvH read more

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I spent the last week doing #peformance #optimization of our #drupal 9 application infrastructure. I learned a lot about #PHP #opcache #profiling and Drupal's internal caching systems. #webprofiler module was a big help, too! read more

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The Drop Times: A Stitch in Time Saves Nine https://t.co/VMWANTSAUe #drupal read more

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One of our Back-end Developers, Greg Carlson has officially been with Aten for one year! Greg's favorite project this year was creating a #Drupal module to easily import CSV files to create content for @C4LPreK. In his free time, Greg follows the KU Jayhawks in his hometown. https://t.co/CN5QDULccA read more

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RT @nmdmatt: .@phpstan's new not-deprecated annotation #drupal https://t.co/To2MLb1hpw read more

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RT @nmdmatt: .@phpstan's new not-deprecated annotation #drupal https://t.co/To2MLb1hpw read more

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Matt Glaman: PHPStan's new @not-deprecated annotation https://t.co/Idxe5nlpQV #drupal read more

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Session submission: »The Ten Ways of Trust in Communication« by @kanadiankicks | @open_strategy https://t.co/HpYj8309le #dcruhr23 #Drupal (tf) https://t.co/zkzLT1BNJZ read more

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#Drupalcamp Colorado has dates! Aug 4 and 5. We want YOU to speak! Your topic doesn't have to be Drupal specifically but should be Drupal adjacent. #drupal #camp #opensource @drupalcolorado Please share this post liberally! https://t.co/Yb1x3vxmQ5 https://t.co/jMBQUq2hPu read more

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Wozu braucht man Drush bei #Drupal 9? Module lassen sich direkt updaten. Drupal Update mit Drush hat einen Aufkleber "deprecated". read more

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RT @SamHuskey: Attention #Drupal developers: @scsclassics is hiring! Details at https://t.co/3lTYHaQys3 read more

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Why join the Acquia's Headless Developer Advisory Board? This board is an opportunity to have your say. Provide feedback into our headless products an roadmaps. Check it out! #Drupal #DrupalHeadless #Decoupled #Developers #Technology #Leadership https://t.co/HJVa4aEinQ read more

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RT @TalkingDrupal: On episode #390, Employee Owned Business with Seth Brown, CEO @lullabot. https://t.co/KiYM6Zwz5C #drupal read more

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Olivero is the new default theme in #Drupal10 & 9 – and the most accessible one yet. Learn more about this modern theme’s best features, as well as its notable namesake. https://t.co/JHwH3hexgq #Drupal https://t.co/zTEKd7wOMa read more

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Are you a developer looking to stay ahead of the game? Then mark your calendars for March 19th and join us for the #Drupal Meetup at Zain Zinc! Don't miss out on this opportunity to enhance your skills and connect with fellow professionals! Register Now! https://t.co/0HwzZfdoR6 read more

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What Is a Content Management System (#CMS)? https://t.co/4Pd3JMXeKS #Wordpress 'joomla #Drupal read more

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Le connecteur officiel #ONLYOFFICE pour #Drupal est est disponible dans le répertoire officiel de Drupal. En savoir plus : https://t.co/UuUhlOteJn https://t.co/ENue19M7aN read more

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.@phpstan's new not-deprecated annotation #drupal https://t.co/To2MLb1hpw read more

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RT @drupalfr: 🔍 Vous avez peut-être vu passer une enquête sur les environnements de développement locaux avec #Drupal récemment ? Elle es… read more

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RT @drupalfr: 🔍 Vous avez peut-être vu passer une enquête sur les environnements de développement locaux avec #Drupal récemment ? Elle es… read more

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RT @DrupalCampRuhr: Wir danken unserem Bronze-Sponsor @arocom_GmbH! 🥰 "Sie suchen eine auf das CMS #Drupal spezialisierte Internetagentur… read more

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RT @drupalasheville: If you have an amazing training idea for #Drupal Camp #Asheville, remember to submit by March 28. That’s in two weeks!… read more

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If you have an amazing training idea for #Drupal Camp #Asheville, remember to submit by March 28. That’s in two weeks! If you are an expert in #SEO, #accessibility, #front-end technology, etc. our attendees would love to learn from you. Learn more at https://t.co/kOg4BLfyXq. https://t.co/IBB17YWptn read more

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The latest Drupal Review! https://t.co/AWLDaVGtYD Thanks to @laravel_101 #drupal #developer read more

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RT @DrupalCampRuhr: Wir danken unserem Bronze-Sponsor @arocom_GmbH! 🥰 "Sie suchen eine auf das CMS #Drupal spezialisierte Internetagentur… read more

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Dziś chcemy przedstawić Wam ciekawe oferty na: 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗮 𝗶 𝗣𝗛𝗣/𝗗𝗿𝘂𝗽𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮🔥 𝗣𝗛𝗣/𝗗𝗿𝘂𝗽𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿 👇 https://t.co/INoX6d6iSQ 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿 👇 https://t.co/9VmiuyNKZ6 #dataengineer #php #Drupal https://t.co/3lW6NZBTPn read more

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Wir danken unserem Bronze-Sponsor @arocom_GmbH! 🥰 "Sie suchen eine auf das CMS #Drupal spezialisierte Internetagentur? Dann sind Sie bei der arocom GmbH genau richtig. Wir entwickeln individuelle Internetauftritte, Portale, Shops und Intranetlösungen." (gs) #dcruhr23 https://t.co/eR7Ql6Tmns read more

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Join us April 27 for the Drupal Zurich Meeting with talks about Ting, AI-Powered-Search-Indexes as well as @SplashAwards_CH 2023 #Drupal #DrupalZH #DrupalSwitzerland https://t.co/HICNsoGSuv read more

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I love all my Drupal and Magento projects I developed in the past 😁🙌 especially Shutterstock from the USA liked it #drupal read more

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RT @drupalfr: 🔍 Vous avez peut-être vu passer une enquête sur les environnements de développement locaux avec #Drupal récemment ? Elle es… read more

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🔍 Vous avez peut-être vu passer une enquête sur les environnements de développement locaux avec #Drupal récemment ? Elle est désormais disponible en français, et vous avez jusqu'au 17 avril pour participer ! 🇫🇷 https://t.co/bvGG2Mh0cI read more

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On episode #390, Employee Owned Business with Seth Brown, CEO @lullabot. https://t.co/KiYM6Zwz5C #drupal read more

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Specbee: Mastering Drupal 9 Layout Builder: A Comprehensive Guide to Effortlessly Customize Your Website's Design https://t.co/J3m41Xemep #drupal read more

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In this blog's category, you’ll learn about useful features of Droopler - our #Drupal distribution for building websites/creating landing pages for #marketing campaigns 👨‍💻 Check the #SEO and navigation functionalities, and the web pages built on Droopler https://t.co/CeicqTnTad read more

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RT @ultimike: I am not surprised by these new #drupal modules, and I welcome our new AI-based content overlords with peace and love 😜 http… read more

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¿Instalar #Drupal con un solo click? Si es posible con nuestros planes de #Hosting (Hospedaje Web), Contrata tu plan ¡Ahora! https://t.co/UyteHPrXCq read more

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ちょっと時間があったので、https://t.co/Fa5p1pcDT8 Blueprintsを触ってみた。Add https://t.co/Fa5p1pcDT8 content typeでレストランとかパン屋を定義してみて、結構ワクワクした。UIが良く属性定義のベストプラクティスが出てくる感じ。 #Drupal https://t.co/mkd5ciBgLy read more

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RT @volkswagenchick: Want to learn how to contribute to #Drupal? Join me at @FoxValleyDrupal next month to learn the ins and outs of the is… read more

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RT @volkswagenchick: Want to learn how to contribute to #Drupal? Join me at @FoxValleyDrupal next month to learn the ins and outs of the is… read more

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RT @ultimike: I am not surprised by these new #drupal modules, and I welcome our new AI-based content overlords with peace and love 😜 http… read more

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RT @opensourceway: Want to learn how to contribute to #Drupal? Join @opensourceway's @volkswagenchick at @FoxValleyDrupal next month to l… read more

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RT @ultimike: I am not surprised by these new #drupal modules, and I welcome our new AI-based content overlords with peace and love 😜 http… read more

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With our #webhosting plans, #webdev create your awesome #website with #drupal a #Free content management system (cms) https://t.co/HbNxEroF4h read more

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RT @volkswagenchick: Want to learn how to contribute to #Drupal? Join me at @FoxValleyDrupal next month to learn the ins and outs of the is… read more

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Want to learn how to contribute to #Drupal? Join @opensourceway's @volkswagenchick at @FoxValleyDrupal next month to learn the ins and outs of the Drupal issue queue. Spoiler alert: you don't have to be a coder to give back to open source. … https://t.co/yi56be3YUR read more

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The latest The drupal Daily! https://t.co/EXg9Mjai8k Thanks to @laravel_101 #drupal #wordpress read more

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@bretwp I recommend #Drupal for sites that have the need to tie together dynamic content in a plethora of ways. Good for HighEd or government sites. read more

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opensourceway: Want to learn how to contribute to #Drupal? Join @opensourceway's @volkswagenchick at @FoxValleyDrupal next month to learn the ins and outs of the Drupal issue queue. Spoiler alert: you don't have to be a coder to give back to open sour… https://t.co/POww6YqRQP read more

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Want to learn how to contribute to #Drupal? Join @opensourceway's @volkswagenchick at @FoxValleyDrupal next month to learn the ins and outs of the Drupal issue queue. Spoiler alert: you don't have to be a coder to give back to open source. https://t.co/G3dSaUzV5r read more

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Want to learn how to contribute to #Drupal? Join me at @FoxValleyDrupal next month to learn the ins and outs of the issue queue. Spoiler alert: you don't have to be a coder to give back to open source. read more

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RT @mikeherchel: #Drupal I wrote a blog post on how I migrated an Olivero component to use Drupal's new Single Directory Components archite… read more

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RT @boshtian: Drupal 10 upgrade: Custom code upgrades, post by @darthsteven of @computerminds https://t.co/StelwGvv96 #Drupal read more

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@iansvo @bretwp Not in the recommendation business anymore but here is how it normally goes - @rootswp for those who love #WordPress + #Laravel. @drupal for those who love @symfony I personally prefer #Drupal these days. read more

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RT @boshtian: Drupal 10 upgrade: Custom code upgrades, post by @darthsteven of @computerminds https://t.co/StelwGvv96 #Drupal read more

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RT @mikeherchel: #Drupal I wrote a blog post on how I migrated an Olivero component to use Drupal's new Single Directory Components archite… read more

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#365daysOfCode Day 356 1. Anki 2. Reading: Javascript Security 101 3. #Drupal : Block Views, built my first one! Still need to push more on drupal it's tough (anyone know any good resources?) 4. #100Devs Standup 5. PoW Dev Hangout 6. Codewars 6th read more

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Attention #Drupal developers: @scsclassics is hiring! Details at https://t.co/3lTYHaQys3 read more

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RT @volkswagenchick: Are you ready to be part of the most exciting European #Drupal event of the year? @DrupalConEur Lille's CFPs is now o… read more

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RT @mikeherchel: #Drupal I wrote a blog post on how I migrated an Olivero component to use Drupal's new Single Directory Components archite… read more

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Talking Drupal: Talking Drupal #390 - Employee Owned Companies https://t.co/fUCxjhpPb5 #drupal read more

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RT @volkswagenchick: Are you ready to be part of the most exciting European #Drupal event of the year? @DrupalConEur Lille's CFPs is now o… read more

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RT @DrupalContract: Now #hiring ➡️ We’re looking for a #Drupal Redesign Project Manager who is skilled with managing project development, d… read more

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RT @DrupalContract: Now #hiring ➡️ We’re looking for a #Drupal Redesign Project Manager who is skilled with managing project development, d… read more

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Now #hiring ➡️ We’re looking for a #Drupal Redesign Project Manager who is skilled with managing project development, defining project scope, goals, and deliverables, and estimating project resource requirements. Learn more & apply here: https://t.co/TqBE9ftdtR #techishiring read more

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Want to learn more about what Contribution Day at #MidCamp 2023 is going to involve? Have we got a meetup for you on April 19th! Thanks to @FoxValleyDrupal https://t.co/ROnSakuIlZ read more

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In the previous versions of #Drupal, you used the #rules module to trigger an action upon an event. In #durpal8 #drupal9 / #drupal10, you subscribe to events and dispatch your own. read more

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Excited to guest host this webinar and chat with some really great security experts to talk about #security in #Drupal read more

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Start taking digital security more seriously! Come see our webinar as guests from @ciandt and the @drupalassoc share insights on pressing security concerns for businesses and provide practical tips for protecting against emerging threats. Join us: https://t.co/E6pvqu2mWO https://t.co/TQcrqAxH5u read more

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Drupal 10 upgrade: Custom code upgrades, post by @darthsteven of @computerminds https://t.co/StelwGvv96 #Drupal read more

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By not upgrading your #Drupal websites to the latest version of #Drupal, you're making it difficult for yourself in the future. read more

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I am not surprised by these new #drupal modules, and I welcome our new AI-based content overlords with peace and love 😜 https://t.co/gXLVYFZ19q Thanks, @kevinquillen, for giving me something new to be distracted by. read more

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Looking to scale up a Drupal site? Or test its capacity to handle surges in volume? Promet’s Josh Estep reviews four load-testing tools for Drupal. https://t.co/6mrfGgWghg #drupal #drupaldeveloper #drupal9 #drugdevelopment #training https://t.co/bKFDuBbrOb read more

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Sprawdź, który system CMS jest dla Ciebie najlepszy! 🤔👨‍💻 Czy to WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Shopify czy Magento, znajdziesz tu informacje, które pomogą Ci podjąć najlepszą decyzję.📝💻 https://t.co/c17hggTOsB #CMS #WordPress #Joomla #Drupal #Shopify #Magento read more

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To compete with some of the largest companies on the web, independent bookstores need a platform with all of the e-commerce features people have come to expect. See how we helped create a full-featured alternative to platforms like Shopify. https://t.co/A6ApsA1LWP #drupal read more

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Are you ready to be part of the most exciting European #Drupal event of the year? @DrupalConEur Lille's CFPs is now open https://t.co/rz4OkhIZhU read more

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Are you ready to be part of the most exciting European #Drupal event of the year? @DrupalConEur Lille's CFPs is now open https://t.co/6rFNhpIiwJ read more

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Are you ready to be part of the most exciting European #Drupal event of the year? @DrupalConEur Lille's CFPs is now open https://t.co/tVmHJ7JO2a read more

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This #WomensHistoryMonth, support #womenintech by sponsoring the Women in Drupal event at @drupalcon Pittsburgh! Grow and diversify talent in your organization by showcasing the #Drupal project and community at its best: https://t.co/j3fGMwOqyy https://t.co/GZUo6uBrlu read more

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You can write documentation and examples about that documentation. This is also considered a contribution towards the #Drupal project. read more

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I’ll be speaking at @drupalcampnj this week - who else is going? read more

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Yesterday we released #GinAdminTheme RC2. Get it while it's hot: https://t.co/O7ItwDngLu #Drupal read more

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RT @mikeherchel: #Drupal I wrote a blog post on how I migrated an Olivero component to use Drupal's new Single Directory Components archite… read more

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RT @specbee: Did you know #Drupal offers almost 50,000 modules for you to use in your projects?! All of these modules are creations of the… read more

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RT @specbee: Read our detailed blog on the must have Drupal modules for your Drupal project - https://t.co/TJXt8BGS1h read more

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Attending @DrupalCampNJ in Princeton? Then you won't want to miss @aburke626's session, "Creating a Culture of Documentation,” on Friday, March 17th from 14:30 - 15:15 EST. For more on Alanna's session, check out: https://t.co/1NztgYY9ps #OpenSource #DrupalCamp #Drupal https://t.co/67kIG6IVcn read more

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@somnana555 @RMCSportCombat @RMCsport BIG PROMOTION ( Free Trial ) IP TV: 40 € / 12 months : 30 € / up to 6 months IP TV is over 18,000 live channels - 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓 https://t.co/EcsCMBEzEL #Encodage/ #H264 / #x264 / #x265 / #VOD / #OTT / #IPTV / #HEVC / #av1 / #MotionDesign / #VR / #Drupal / #caméraVR #livestream360 read more

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@steven_reyes_va @CSEmelec BIG PROMOTION ( Free Trial ) IP TV: 40 € / 12 months : 30 € / up to 6 months IP TV is over 18,000 live channels - 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓 https://t.co/EcsCMBEzEL #Encodage/ #H264 / #x264 / #x265 / #VOD / #OTT / #IPTV / #HEVC / #av1 / #MotionDesign / #VR / #Drupal / #caméraVR #livestream360 read more

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@Transports2K @Panamza BIG PROMOTION ( Free Trial ) IP TV: 40 € / 12 months : 30 € / up to 6 months IP TV is over 18,000 live channels - 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓 https://t.co/EcsCMBEzEL #Encodage/ #H264 / #x264 / #x265 / #VOD / #OTT / #IPTV / #HEVC / #av1 / #MotionDesign / #VR / #Drupal / #caméraVR #livestream360 read more

Omega8.cc: Classic Ægir, Welcomed Home

The Drop Times: Built for TDT, Now Used Beyond It: The Journey of a Drupal Module

The Drop Times: Your Client Is Not a Ticket

Take Part in the 2026 Drupal Business Survey

About the Business Survey

Participate and share your insights

Drupal Association blog: Take Part in the 2026 Drupal Business Survey

About the Business Survey

Participate and share your insights

Beyond Headless - How Drupalists, Front-End Natives, and LLMs All Win with Next.js

DDEV Blog: DDEV v1.25.4: Database Seeding and Reset, MySQL 9.7 LTS, Global Configuration, New Project Types

Table of Contents

Database Seeding and Reset

MySQL 9.7 LTS Support

Global Configuration: Set It Once, for Every Project

New Project Types and Shopware 6 Without an Add-on

New Commands and Flags

DDEV Tells You What's Wrong

Regressions from v1.25.3, Fixed

Other Fixes Worth Knowing About

Performance Is Measured Automatically Now

Everything Else

Metadrop: Fixing missing image alt attributes in Drupal without development

Missing image alt attributes cost accessibility and SEO points

A Drupal migration left 12,000 images without proper alt text

Omega8.cc: Your Site Already Said No

Aten Design Group: Who Owns the Icon? Building Author-Friendly Icon Systems in Drupal

Start with ownership

When authored icons live in code, things get brittle

Use Media when the icon is an authored choice

Keep rendering predictable

Give each part of the system the control it needs

Berliners blog: Rebuilding a data-driven Drupal site: Migrating page element configuration from Panels to Layout Builder

Tags

Droptica: Why Drupal works for structured content operations at scale

The work that just happens: the DA Insider for August 2026

Straight from Ryan's desk

The 2026 Drupal Business Survey Is Open

DrupalCon Rotterdam is almost here

All You Need To Know About DrupalCon Orlando

Early Bird Registration Opens September 14

Summits & Training

Summits (Add-on $350)

Full-Day Training (Add-on $550)

Community Party + The First-Ever DrupalCon Talent Show

Call for Speakers Is Still Open

Where In The World Is Bytes?

The Engineering Team Has Been Busy

The Drupal Association At-Large Board Election Winner Is Announced

Drupal Association blog: The work that just happens: the DA Insider for August 2026

Straight from Ryan's desk

The 2026 Drupal Business Survey Is Open

DrupalCon Rotterdam is almost here

All You Need To Know About DrupalCon Orlando

Early Bird Registration Opens September 14

Summits & Training

Summits (Add-on $350)

Full-Day Training (Add-on $550)

Community Party + The First-Ever DrupalCon Talent Show

Call for Speakers Is Still Open

Where In The World Is Bytes?

The Engineering Team Has Been Busy

The Drupal Association At-Large Board Election Winner Is Announced

Specbee: Canvas Page Metatag Module: How to restore full SEO controls to Drupal Canvas pages

Gspikes: The Complete Drupal 7 → Drupal 11 Migration Checklist: 52 Steps, In Order

Freelock Blog: Drupal Meets Matrix part 1: Setting up Matrix API

Omega8.cc: Pull Your Site into DDEV

A Drupal Couple: Drupal could be a great answer for vibe coding

Drupal could be a great answer for vibe coding

Add new comment

The Drop Times: When Websites Become Interfaces for Machines

Acquia.com - Drupal Blog: Two Keynotes, One Question: Building Through Disruption at Drupal GovCon

The Drupal Association Announces 2026 Board Election Winner

Detailed Voting Results

Drupal Association blog: The Drupal Association Announces 2026 Board Election Winner

Detailed Voting Results

Specbee: Specbee is now a Drupal AI Initiative Partner. What does it mean for your platform?

#! code: Drupal 11: Migrating From Jadu Into LocalGov Drupal: Part 3

Omega8.cc: BOA's Baby Pictures

Mike Herchel's Blog: It’s time to prepare your Drupal modules for Admin’s dark mode