Building a Headless CMS with Notion

Notion is a powerful tool for content teams, but using it as a headless CMS requires careful architecture. In this post, we walk through our approach: fetch at build time, validate every payload with zod, and always have a mock fallback so the site builds without Notion.

The key insight is treating Notion as a content source, not a database. We define strict schemas for every content type, and if Notion returns something unexpected, the build doesn't break — it falls back to fixtures.

This pattern lets editorial teams work in Notion's familiar interface while developers maintain type safety and build reliability.