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Check Performance Data - Content page builder (`content-page-builder` branch)

A ground-up rewrite of the CMS around a single unified page tree. Replaces the old ContentPage / GuidancePage-in-code / wiki-only split with one entity — PageNode — that every page on the public site now resolves through. Content pages are authored as a widget tree (heading, rich-text, cards, page-nav, search, …) inside a region-based layout, published through versions, and edited from a page-tree admin with drag-and-drop reordering, right-click actions, and a live left-nav that mirrors the site.

This document is the dev-onboarding overview. Feature docs that predate this branch (CMS-search.md, guidance-and-content-staging.md) still describe the pieces that survived; anything they contradict, this branch wins.

What ships on this branch

The unified page tree

  • PageNode + PageNodeVersion tables. Every page — folders, wiki pages, and the new widget-based content pages — is a row in PageNodes with a PageType (folder / wiki / content) and a Path (the URL, computed from Segment + ancestor path). Versioned content lives in PageNodeVersions with per-version publish windows (StartDate / EndDate), a Content text column (widget JSON for content pages, sanitised HTML for wiki pages), and decimal draft version numbers that promote to whole integers on publish.
  • Catch-all route resolver. PageController binds /{*path} with Order = int.MaxValue, so any URL not claimed by a real controller route falls through to a PageNode lookup. Assertion test (PageControllerRouteOrderTests) guarantees the catch-all can never shadow app routes. Missing pages render a CMS-authored /help/not-found page with HTTP 404 (falls back to bare NotFound() if that page is deleted, so the resolver never returns nothing).
  • Retired the old ContentPage stack. ContentPages and ContentPageVersions tables + the whole ContentPage web/service/persistence layer are gone (Remove ContentPage … commits). Old routes redirect via the page tree. GuidanceController is retired too — /guidance now resolves to a PageNode.
  • Soft delete + reorder. Deletes mark DeletedDate; deleted pages surface under /admin/pages/deleted (moved off the wiki-flavored /help/deleted route). Up/down reorder is a MoveTo tree op with sibling-index maths that survives moves within the same parent.

Content-page authoring model

  • Widget tree stored as JSON. A content page's Content is a JSON array of nodes. Top-level is one or more region nodes; each region carries columns, each column an ordered list of widget nodes. Round-tripped through ContentPageJson (System.Text.Json), addressed by dotted paths for insert/remove/move (ContentTreeEditor).
  • Eight widgets ship. Heading (h1–h6, auto-anchored so the auto side-nav renders), RichText (TinyMCE-authored, sanitised via Ganss.Xss with the GOV.UK-safe allow-list), Divider, Card (title, body, optional image, optional link — equal card heights across wrapped rows), SummaryList, Published (last-reviewed callout), Search (with an optional scope prop that constrains results to a subtree — e.g. every KS4 split page searches within /guidance), and PageNav (renders the direct-children nav from the tree). Widgets live under Views/Shared/ContentPages/Widgets/ as Razor partials.
  • Region layouts map to the GDS grid. Regions carry a layout name (one-column, two-thirds-one-third, one-half-one-half, etc). RegionLayouts maps each to the equivalent govuk-grid-column-* classes so authored content lines up with the design system without editors having to know CSS.
  • PageNode properties. Beyond Title, pages carry an editable Subtitle, a PageName (short label for menu use), a Segment (URL slug), and a boolean ShowInMenu (default true) that hides the page from public side-nav + search widgets when off. Menu / search widgets skip folder-typed pages and pages with no live version.
  • Content-block auto-provisioning. The EditableContent view component seeds a block on first render if none exists for the given key. Falling back to defaultHtml in code lets a template ship with useful default content that becomes editable in /admin/content-blocks the first time the page is viewed — no migration required.

Admin CMS (/admin/…)

  • Live page tree in the admin left-nav. The full page tree renders in the sidebar on every admin screen, with a localStorage-backed collapse state, an "open by default" reset for stale states, and a "highlight + expand branch" pass for the currently-loaded node.
  • Content blocks in the same tree. A parallel tree under /admin/content-blocks mirrors the pages tree and lists the blocks used on each page. LastSeenPath / LastSeenAt on ContentBlocks (from the guidance branch) drives the location column.
  • Right-click context menu on every tree node. Edit, Versions, New child page, Delete — each with an icon, each honouring modifier keys (right-click on Edit / Versions / New child opens in a new tab).
  • Drag-and-drop reorder + reparent. HTML5 DnD with a placeholder slot that inflates between siblings so the drop target is unambiguous (see admin-page-tree-dnd.js). Client-side sort-index maths accounts for the source being filtered out of the sibling list when it's in the same parent as the target. Anti-forgery header wired as X-XSRF-TOKEN for the JSON move POST. After a move, the browser lands on the moved page so its branch stays open.
  • Edit page with tabs. Content editor, Properties, Versions. Content editor: widget palette sorted alphabetically, drag-and-drop widget reordering (including into regions), inline "Add content here" slots between widgets, per-widget forms (rich-text uses TinyMCE), light-orange region backgrounds so the layout is visible. Properties: editable Title, URL segment (via rename modal), Subtitle, PageName, ShowInMenu, PageType. Versions: full history with Save / Publish draft / Unpublish / schedule window / restore.
  • Version numbers. Whole integers on released versions, decimal fractions on drafts, Past status tag for expired-window versions, and the edit page's status badge is reconciled with the actual publish state (drafts show as drafts even when a live version exists). Publish window can be pre-filled but the Publish button ignores it and goes live now.
  • Pages admin header. H1 shows the current page's Title (not "Pages"). Action toolbar (New child page, Delete, View, Search) is a compact icon row stacked immediately under the title. Empty-state green "New child page" button removed in favour of the icon-row entry. Search widget hidden when the section has no children and no active query.
  • In-page Edit shortcut on published pages. Logged-in editors/admins see a floating pencil chip in the top-right of any published content page. Clicking opens /admin/pages/{id}/edit in a new tab (so the public view stays in place). Rendered only for Editor / Admin roles; invisible to end users.
  • Post-delete navigation. Deleting a page from the admin now redirects to the deleted page's parent (falls back to /admin/pages at the root) instead of hanging on the just-deleted URL.
  • Deleted pages view. Lives under /admin/pages/deleted — the old /help/deleted wiki-flavoured route is gone.
  • /search?q=… returns pages and content blocks in one ranked list. Postgres ILIKE for both (title + body for pages, key + rendered HTML for blocks). Results de-duplicate by URL, snippet-highlight matches with <mark>, and every card is one clickable link — no type-filter checkboxes, no bottom URL row.
  • Search widget scope. The Search widget accepts an optional scope prop that pins the search to a subtree — the KS4 split pages set scope="guidance" so their bottom-of-page search only surfaces guidance results.
  • Search results exclude folder-typed pages and pages with no live version, matching the menu widget so the two never diverge.

KS4 split (public /guidance)

  • The 22222222-… KS4 monster page has been broken into 13 sibling pages under /guidance, one per top-level section of the source docx spec. Titles moved into the right-hand column above content (matching the split-page comp), left column is the MoJ side-navigation, breadcrumbs anchored to the top of both columns for a clean lock-up.
  • Each split page ends with a Divider immediately above a scoped Search widget so it's visually clear where the page body ends and the search hand-off begins.
  • Anchors on copied headings are regenerated on the way in so the auto side-nav renders (anchorize pass in the copy tool).
  • Links on the /guidance landing page have been updated to point at the corresponding split page rather than the monster page.

Roles + system administration

  • Role-based section access grid at /admin/system-administration/roles. One column per role, one row per admin section. Admin is locked to every section (checkboxes rendered disabled alongside a hidden true input so the server still receives the value on save). New roles can be registered with an empty grant and persist (a __registered__ sentinel row keeps the role in the schema until real grants are added).
  • Native <input type="checkbox">, not govuk-checkboxes__input. The GDS class visually-hides the input and relies on a label, which doesn't fit a compact grid — the grid uses plain natives with a light custom style.

Analytics (280389-analytics, merged into this branch)

  • DfE Analytics web_request middleware and organisation enricher wired into Program.cs.
  • Custom events: journey_funnel, evidence, validation_error, pupil-search, and a rules-engine decision-mix event that fires from the rules engine worker.

Footer content block

  • The Support and guidance section in _Layout.cshtml — heading, intro paragraph, and the Privacy / Cookies / Accessibility / Guidance link row — is now a single EditableContent block keyed footer-support-and-guidance. Editors update all four labels + the intro text from /admin/content-blocks without a redeploy.

Database

Migrations applied on this branch (apply clean on a fresh DB and over current main):

  • PageNode + PageNodeVersion tables — the unified page tree and per-page versioned content. Filtered unique index on Path where DeletedDate IS NULL so a soft-deleted path can be reused by a new page (positive test in PageNodeRepositoryTests).
  • Drop ContentPages / ContentPageVersions — the old tables are removed once the code that reads them is gone.
  • ShowInMenu column on PageNodes (default true) driving the public menu / search filter.
  • PageName column on PageNodes for the short label used in menus.
  • Subtitle column on PageNodes for content-page subheadings.
  • MinorVersion column on PageNodeVersions for decimal draft version numbers.
  • The guidance branch's ContentId and LastSeenPath / LastSeenAt columns on ContentBlocks are still in play.

Route resolution order

  1. Real controller routes (attribute + conventional) win.
  2. The catch-all PageController.Show([HttpGet("/{*path}", Order = int.MaxValue)]) picks up anything unclaimed.
  3. It resolves the path to a PageNode. If the node is a folder, it renders a child index; otherwise it looks up the live version.
  4. If there's a live version, content renders through the widget template, wiki through the sanitised-HTML template.
  5. If there's no live version, Editor/Admin roles see a draft preview of the working/latest version; everyone else gets the CMS-authored 404 page.

Testing

  • Unit — page-tree services, widget-tree edit operations, region-layout mapping, version-window logic, path validator (route-collision guard), HTML sanitiser allow-list, block auto-provisioning.
  • Integration — Postgres via Testcontainers. Page-tree CRUD, publish-window resolution over time, soft-delete + path re-use, cross-version scheduling, MoveTo sibling-index maths, and content-staging bundle round-trip against the new tree.
  • E2E (Playwright) — page-tree admin drag-and-drop, right-click context menu, widget-editor drag-into-region, publish → view flow, unified search page, KS4 split navigation, in-page Edit shortcut.

Local dev

Unchanged from before: docker compose --project-name check-performance-data up -d from check-performance-data/. Web at http://localhost:8080/; admin at http://localhost:8080/admin. DOTNET_NUGET_SIGNATURE_VERIFICATION=false is still required for local dotnet build because of the upstream Refit signing-cert issue.

Anything that touched view code needs a docker compose --project-name check-performance-data build web --no-cache if you see stale HTML after a rebuild — the Razor compile step can hold onto a stale layer under BuildKit.