(for sharing payload config across apps leveraging payload localAPI)

Base context

This article is my personal contribution to this thread on the community support channel of the official payload discord server: https://discord.com/channels/967097582721572934/1350714672411574323/1350714672411574323 about:

"How to use localApi from external project (import/export payload config)"

We discussed the following options:

• Building the payload config as a private npm package
  • But expose secrets or need custom wrapper. Was not able to make this work properly anyway.
• Using a monorepo to share payload config from a local package.

  • Using this template as demo https://github.com/fusionary/turbo-payload

  • Someone pointed out the above solution was hard to implement using payload cloud as the hosting platform and instead suggested this other monorepo example: https://github.com/payloadcms/payload/tree/main/examples/remix and the following payload cloud deploy config: (here is is for reference)

    

After thoughts, we could have also explored a tRPC solution perhaps ? not covered here, but interested if anyone did this.

Now that initial context is setup, here I explored what seamed the cleanest solution to my problem: the turbo-payload template project. I had to refactor my multi-repo project in a monorepo, moving the payload config in a shared package.

I came from:

• one standalone vercel hosted headless payload cms (only de admin panel)
• one standalone netlify hosted astro frontend querying the payload cms via the payload REST API (not typesafe)

I aimed for a monorepo with:

• a local shared payload config package (packages/payload)
• one vercel hosted headless payload cms (only de admin panel) automatically built from payload loading my shared config. (apps/cms)
• one netlify hosted astro frontend querying the payload cms via the payload LocalAPI thanks to a shared payload config (typesafe) (apps/website)

It was my first experience with monorepo, pnpm workspaces, turbo, and I have some difficulties migrating my project. I thought it might help someone else to keep track of all the things I had difficulties to understand, and the different issue I faced.