Content Collections

Content Collections are Astro’s solution for managing content like blog posts, documentation, and other Markdown/MDX files.

What are Content Collections?

Content Collections provide:

• Type-safety - Validate your frontmatter with Zod schemas
• Organization - Group related content together
• Querying - Easy-to-use APIs for fetching content
• Performance - Optimized for build-time data fetching

Defining a Collection

Collections are defined in src/content.config.ts:

import { defineCollection, z } from 'astro:content';
import { glob } from 'astro/loaders';

const blogCollection = defineCollection({
  loader: glob({ pattern: '**/*.{md,mdx}', base: './src/content/blog' }),
  schema: z.object({
    title: z.string(),
    description: z.string().optional(),
    pubDate: z.coerce.date(),
    author: z.string().optional(),
    tags: z.array(z.string()).optional(),
  }),
});

export const collections = {
  blog: blogCollection,
};

Querying Collections

Use the Content Collections API to query your content:

---
import { getCollection } from 'astro:content';

// Get all blog posts
const allPosts = await getCollection('blog');

// Filter posts
const publishedPosts = await getCollection('blog', ({ data }) => {
  return !data.draft;
});

// Sort posts by date
const sortedPosts = allPosts.sort((a, b) => 
  b.data.pubDate.valueOf() - a.data.pubDate.valueOf()
);
---

Rendering Content

To render a content entry:

---
import { getEntry, render } from 'astro:content';

const post = await getEntry('blog', 'my-post');
const { Content, headings } = await render(post);
---

<article>
  <h1>{post.data.title}</h1>
  <Content />
</article>

Frontmatter Validation

The schema ensures your frontmatter is always valid:

---
title: My Blog Post        # ✓ Required
description: A great post  # ✓ Optional
pubDate: 2026-01-20       # ✓ Coerced to Date
author: John Doe          # ✓ Optional string
tags: [astro, blog]       # ✓ Array of strings
draft: false              # ✓ Boolean
---

Next Steps

In the next chapter, we’ll explore styling and theming your Astro site to make it look beautiful and unique.