Start Here widget and post management in the admin panel

A blog needs editorial management — not just publishing. In this iteration I added post management in the Admin panel, featured posts, and a Start Here section on the Frontend homepage.

Services: Admin, Blog, Frontend

Internal Blog API for CMS

Blog got a new set of internal routes accessible only to Admin (API key):

GET  /internal/posts
POST /internal/posts
PUT  /internal/posts/{id}
GET  /internal/categories
GET  /internal/tags

These routes bypass the JWT guard — they are not for logged-in users, only for the Admin service acting as a client.

The featured_posts table

A new table in the Blog database. It holds the list of featured posts with their display order. Related to posts via post_id.

CREATE TABLE featured_posts (
    id         BIGINT PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
    post_id    BIGINT NOT NULL,
    position   INT    NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
    created_at TIMESTAMP,
    updated_at TIMESTAMP,
    FOREIGN KEY (post_id) REFERENCES posts(id)
);

Admin can reorder featured posts via drag-and-drop in Filament.

Admin — Manage Posts page

A new page in FilamentPHP with a list of all posts from the Blog API. Columns: title, author, category, status, date. Filters: status, category, author. Actions: edit, delete, change status.

Creating and editing a post opens a form with fields: title, slug, content (Markdown), category, tags, status (draft/published).

Admin — Start Here page

A separate Filament page for managing the "Start Here" list. Drag-and-drop to reorder. Ability to add a post via a search widget (autocomplete by title).

Frontend — Start Here section

The Frontend homepage now has a "Start Here" section. Frontend fetches it from Blog through the /internal/featured-posts endpoint — this route is internal, requires no JWT, but is only accessible within the Docker/K8s network.

The section displays post cards: title, thumbnail, short description, link to the post.