Version history

Every save appends an immutable snapshot of the whole entry. Nothing to switch on — every content type has history.

Reading history

curl 'https://cms.example.com/api/content/article/0b9e…/revisions?page=1&pageSize=20' \
  -b 'orthacms_session=…' -H 'X-Workspace-Id: 7d0c…'

{
    "items": [
        { "id": "…", "number": 5, "status": "draft", "isPublished": false, "isLatest": true,
          "createdAt": "2026-09-29T10:12:00.000Z", "authorId": "…" },
        { "id": "…", "number": 4, "status": "published", "isPublished": true, "isLatest": false,
          "createdAt": "2026-09-28T08:40:00.000Z", "publishedAt": "2026-09-28T08:41:03.000Z", "authorId": "…" }
    ],
    "total": 5
}

One version, with its snapshot and resolved relation references:

curl https://cms.example.com/api/content/article/0b9e…/revisions/4 \
  -b 'orthacms_session=…' -H 'X-Workspace-Id: 7d0c…'

{
    "id": "…",
    "number": 4,
    "status": "published",
    "isPublished": true,
    "isLatest": false,
    "createdAt": "2026-09-28T08:40:00.000Z",
    "snapshot": {
        "values": { "title": "Hello world", "author": "a7f2…" },
        "relations": { "tags": ["9c4b…", "77aa…"] }
    },
    "relationRefs": {
        "tags": [
            { "id": "9c4b…", "title": "Design", "slug": "design" },
            { "id": "77aa…", "title": "Research", "slug": "research" }
        ]
    },
    "relationTotals": { "tags": 2 }
}

History is admin API only. Newest first; pageSize defaults to 20, max 100.

Endpoints

What a snapshot holds

One table, content_entry_revisions, shared by every type. A snapshot is { values, relations, extra? }:

• values — the whole values bag: scalars, single-relation FKs, media values.
• relations — the full ordered link set of every join-backed relation, so a reorder is a recorded change.
• extra — state other plugins keep about the entry, such as the segments access lists. A restore hands it back. A version written before such a plugin was installed has no extra, meaning “unknown”, not “none”.

Revisions are per locale — each translation has its own timeline. Every read is keyed on (content_type, entry_id, workspace_id).

When a revision is written

• Inside the save’s transaction, atomically with the row and its links.
• The entry’s advisory lock serialises concurrent saves, so version numbers never collide.
• The live row still edits in place; history only appends.

Version status

• Publishing the entry marks its latest revision published and demotes the previous one to superseded, in the same transaction.
• Saving a published entry makes it Modified: the row returns to draft, the published revision keeps its mark.
• The public API serves that published revision while the entry is Modified — REST, GraphQL and MCP alike (since 0.7.0). Before 0.7.0 a Modified entry vanished from public reads until it was published again.
• Unpublishing returns the live version to draft.

Restoring versus publishing a version

Publishing a version re-runs the publish gate. On a 422 the content stays re-applied as a draft — recoverable, not half-done.

Diffing in the admin

The entry’s History tab lists versions newest first, grouped by day, marking Live and the Current draft, with the record’s activity events between them. A selected version is compared with the current draft beside the list; previewing one compares it field by field with the current version, and unchanged fields fold behind “Show n unchanged”. Empty values do not show as "" → null changes, and link sets compare in order.

A relation target that has since been soft-deleted, or is no longer visible from this workspace, is flagged missing instead of leaking its title.