Create and Manage Workspaces with Headless CMS Branches
In Contentstack Headless CMS, branches create isolated copies of a stack so teams can develop and validate changes without impacting the main (default) branch. A new child branch inherits the stack configuration and content from its source branch at the time of creation, including content types, entries, languages, extensions, releases, and linked workspaces.
- Only stack owners, admins, and developers can create branches.
- A branch can be created from the main or from any other branch (for subsequent branches).
- Only one branch creation operation can run at a time per organization. Additional branch creation requests remain in the queue until the current operation completes. Status is available in the organization’s bulk task queue.
To create a new branch, log in to your Contentstack account and perform the steps given below:
- Navigate to CMS through “App Switcher”.
- Open your stack and click Settings > Branches.
- Click + New Branch.
- In Create New Branch, enter:
- Branch ID: Enter a unique ID (for example, staging or dev).
- Source Branch: Select the branch that the new branch should inherit from.
Note: For the first child branch, main is typically selected by default.
The spaces and workspaces linked with the source branch appear in the Workspace setup section.
- For each linked workspace, choose one of the following:
- Link existing workspace: Select this to keep the branch connected to the same workspace as the source branch.
- Fork and link workspace: Select this to create a new workspace copy for the new branch.
- Click Create to initiate the branch creation process.
- Switch to the new branch using the branch selector.
- Go to Settings > Assets Hub.
- Verify linked workspaces:
- Workspaces linked as-is appear unchanged.
- Forked workspaces appear as newly linked workspaces (e.g., test_1 if the workspace name before forking was test).
This setup ensures branch-level isolation in the stack and workspace-level isolation in assets when required.
