03-cms-branches-aliases

Guidelines for using Contentstack branches to develop content separately and aliases to publish changes between versions.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to plan branch workflows, distinguish shared from branch-specific modules, connect content releases to CI/CD, and handle merging or rollback.
Why use it?
They help teams make content and schema changes without affecting the live site, while supporting controlled releases and rollbacks.

Cursor rule

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add rules/contentstack/contentstack-agent-skills/03-cms-branches-aliases
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/contentstack/contentstack-agent-skills
Per session 43 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,078 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00043 $0.01078
Opus 5 $0.00022 $0.00539
Sonnet 5 $0.00009 $0.00216
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00108

Measured 2d ago against content hash bc538711678b, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

03-cms-branches-aliases scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

cursor/rules/03-cms-branches-aliases.mdc · 103 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 103 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Branches & Aliases

Description

Advise developers on using Contentstack branches for isolated content development and aliases for zero-downtime content deployments. Cover branch strategy, branch-specific vs global modules, CI/CD integration, merge behavior, and rollback patterns.

When to Use

Use when developers ask about branches, aliases, CI/CD integration with Contentstack, deployment strategies, or branch-specific vs global module behavior.

User Problem

Developers need to make schema and content changes safely without affecting the live site, then deploy changes with zero downtime and easy rollback.

Success Criteria

Recommends an appropriate branch strategy. Explains branch-specific vs global modules accurately. Gives practical alias-based deployment patterns. Provides safe CI/CD integration guidance. Includes clear merge and rollback advice.

Expected Inputs

  • Development workflow or CI/CD pipeline
  • Deployment strategy requirements
  • Team structure and collaboration needs
  • Rollback requirements

Expected Outputs

  • Branch strategy recommendations
  • Global vs branch-specific module explanations
  • Alias-based deployment patterns
  • CI/CD integration guidance
  • Merge and rollback advice

Example User Requests

  • How do I use branches for content schema development?
  • What is the difference between branch-specific and global modules?
  • How do I deploy content changes with zero downtime?
  • How do branches work with my CI/CD pipeline?
  • Can I roll back a bad deployment?

Workflow Summary

Understand the development and deployment workflow. Recommend a branch strategy. Explain branch-specific vs global modules. Guide alias-based deployment. Cover merge, rollback, and CI/CD integration.

Instructions

[{"heading":"Branch basics","content":"Branches copy the source branch's content types, global fields, entries, and assets into an isolated workspace. Max 5 branches per stack. Only one branch can be created or deleted at a time across an organization. Only owners, admins, and developers can manage branches."},{"heading":"Branch-specific vs global modules","content":"Branch-specific: content types, global fields, entries, assets, publish queue, releases, languages, extensions, audit logs, labels, search. Global: environments, webhooks, workflows, publish rules, users, roles, tokens. A webhook created on main is visible everywhere but can be scoped to a specific branch. A content type on a development branch does not exist on main until merged."},{"heading":"Alias-based deployment","content":"Aliases point to branches. Hardcode an alias such as deploy in frontend code instead of a branch UID. To switch production to a new branch, reassign the alias. Frontend code does not change. For rollback, reassign the alias back. Two aliases can point to the same branch, but a branch and alias cannot share the same UID."},{"heading":"CI/CD pattern","content":"Create a branch from main, make schema and content changes, test on staging, reassign the production alias to the new branch, and reassign back immediately if something goes wrong."},{"heading":"Branch strategy","content":"Keep branch lifetimes short. Long-lived branches drift and create merge conflicts. Prefer trunk-based workflow with short-lived feature branches merged back to main quickly. Do not use branches as permanent environments; use environments for that."},{"heading":"SDK initialization","content":"Pass the branch or alias ID explicitly, for example branch: 'deploy'. If no branch header is passed, main is used by default. Always pass the branch header explicitly in scripts, even when targeting main."}],

Read the full file on GitHub · 103 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 103 lines · 43 tokens per session scan A bc538711678b

Subscribe to this mod's changes

03-cms-branches-aliases is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository contentstack/contentstack-agent-skills (5 stars, last pushed 15d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 43 tokens to every session and 1,078 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.