fidzu : Drupal

31 Mar 2026 12:49am GMT

Live from DrupalCon Chicago, Nic Laflin is joined by Tim Plunkett, Steve Wirt, Martin Anderson-Clutz, and John Picozzi to discuss the event's tone, Dries Notes and key themes including Drupal Canvas, Drupal AI, and new site templates/marketplace progress and more.

For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/546

Topics

• Reconnecting With Community
• Must See Sessions
• Vibe And Starshot
• Attendance And Venue
• Community Party Returns
• Dries Note and AI Debate
• Roadmap And Templates
• Recipes And Exports
• AI In Engineering Workflows
• Keynote Style Takeaways
• Dries Note Takeaways
• Canvas Content Templates
• View Modes Roadmap
• Translation Plans Explained
• Gala Highlights
• Commemorative Tokens
• Future Excitement Roundtable
• DrupalCon Orlando Tease
• Wrap Up and Contacts

Guests

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi

Tim Plunkett - timplunkett

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan

Steve Wirt - civicactions.com Swirt

30 Mar 2026 6:00pm GMT

My LocalGov Drupal contributions for March 2026

markconroy 31st Mar 2026

30 Mar 2026 3:35pm GMT

In my portion of the "Drupal CMS Spotlights" keynote, I made the case that in my 19+ years of being involved in the Drupal community, now is the most exciting time in Drupal's history.

I showed up to DrupalCon very anxious, because we had one training, three sessions, one booth session, and an extra "appearance" beyond that. Phew! In addition, Andy, Adam G-H, and I had only just wrapped up the work on Drupal CMS that allowed for paid site templates in the installer.

Drupal innovation & getting sh** done

With all of the work being done on 1) Drupal CMS, 2) Drupal Canvas, and 3) Drupal AI, it really feels like the pace of innovation has increased significantly from just two years ago. It's exciting, but oftentimes it's also a bit overwhelming!

30 Mar 2026 2:09pm GMT

Falling in the playground

Using the metaphor of a playground for my AI Drupal development environment now feels completely fitting, based on my experience building a module using AI. Good playgrounds have a variety of structures that challenge kids of different ages and confidence levels, helping them develop their physical and social skills.

For example, most kids don't just run into a playground and immediately climb to the top of the monkey bars as their first move; yes, some daredevils will go straight there, and foolish ones will cry for help if they get stuck. My specific playground experience with AI was learning how to fall, get up, and try again. My obstacle was building a module using Claude Code. Similar to kids trying their first climb on the monkey bars, they expect to reach the top effortlessly, but as they climb, they face reality, their hands get sweaty, and they look down.

Unrealistic expectations

I had glorious expectations for my experience building a fairly complex module with Claude Code. I assumed that a fully documented module specification plan would guide Claude in creating a working solution.

Personally, I am not very skilled at writing requirements, specifications, and documentation. At best, I excel at writing self-documenting code, which is somewhat of a cop-out. For me, having a complete plan in place before starting implementation feels like a refreshing change. Creating better plans for AI coding agents will help me become a better mentor to humans.

Prompting a comprehensive plan

I wrote my module specification using Claude Chat. In my previous post about experimenting with agent skills, I shared an example module...Read More

30 Mar 2026 1:22pm GMT

Drupal 12 will hash passwords with Argon2id by default. It moves every Drupal site to what is now best practice for password storage, recommended by OWASP and aligned with NIST guidance.

Drupal is often used for security-sensitive and large-scale sites, so these kinds of changes matter.

Early versions of Drupal stored passwords as simple MD5 hashes, which is extremely weak by today's standards. Drupal 7 introduced a modified version of the phpass library using SHA-512 with multiple iterations and a salt, and Drupal 10 switched to bcrypt. Each jump was a response to attackers getting faster hardware, and this change continues that pattern.

When I first looked at this change, I wanted to understand what Argon2id actually does differently from bcrypt.

Its key advantage is that it is "memory hard". Each Argon2id hash requires far more memory to compute than a bcrypt hash, and the amount is configurable.

Modern GPUs can run many bcrypt computations in parallel because each one uses very little RAM. GPUs have a lot of total memory, but it is shared across thousands of parallel computations. As a result, Argon2id limits how many hash computations can run in parallel, making it harder and more expensive to scale attacks.

The best security upgrades are the ones nobody has to think about. Once a site upgrades to Drupal 12, existing passwords will automatically be rehashed to Argon2id the next time each user logs in. And in the unlikely event that Argon2id is not available in a particular PHP installation, Drupal will fall back to bcrypt for compatibility.

Many site owners never think about password hashing, so Drupal's defaults become their security policy. The people who benefit most from this change may never know it happened. It's why being "secure by default" matters so much.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen.

30 Mar 2026 9:15am GMT

git worktree lets you check out multiple branches of the same repository into separate directories-all sharing one .git directory. Combined with DDEV, this gives you multiple running versions of the same project without duplicate clones.

There are many ways to use this, but some common patterns:

• Keep directories named after the branch they contain.
• Work on a hotfix and a feature branch without them interfering with each other.
• Set up Claude Code to work on two features at once in two distinct directories.

Here's our March 26, 2026 Contributor Training on using git worktree with DDEV:

The slides are available at rfay.github.io/git-worktree-ddev.

See also the presentation at Florida Drupal Camp.

The Problem: Multiple Versions of a Project

When you need to work on several branches of a project simultaneously-say, a feature branch and a hotfix branch-the naive approach is to clone the repository twice:

git clone git@github.com:ddev/d11simple fancy-feature-1
git clone git@github.com:ddev/d11simple fancy-feature-2

This works, but each clone is a full redundant copy, and sharing objects or refs between them is awkward.

DDEV Project Names and Directories

By default, DDEV names a project after the directory it lives in. When you remove the name: key from .ddev/config.yaml, every checkout of a project gets the name of its parent directory automatically.

You can make this the global default:

ddev config global --omit-project-name-by-default

With that in place, fancy-feature-1/ becomes https://fancy-feature-1.ddev.site and fancy-feature-2/ becomes https://fancy-feature-2.ddev.site-no manual naming is required.

Using git worktree

git worktree solves the duplicate-clone problem. All worktrees share one .git directory:

# In ~/workspace/D11SIMPLE:
git clone git@github.com:ddev/d11simple
cd d11simple
git worktree add ../fancy-feature-1
git worktree add ../fancy-feature-2

Without a branch argument, git worktree add creates a new branch named after the directory. To check out an existing branch instead:

git worktree add ../fancy-feature-1 origin/fancy-feature-1

The resulting layout:

D11SIMPLE/
├── d11simple          # primary clone (has .git/)
├── fancy-feature-1    # worktree checkout
└── fancy-feature-2    # worktree checkout

Setting Up the Database and Files

Export database and files from your primary project once, then import into each worktree:

# From ~/workspace/D11SIMPLE - create a shared tarball directory
mkdir .tarballs

# Export from the primary clone
cd d11simple
ddev export-db --file=../.tarballs/db.sql.gz
# Adjust the path below for your CMS; web/sites/default/files is Drupal
tar -C web/sites/default/files -czf ../.tarballs/files.tgz .

# Import into a worktree
cd ../fancy-feature-1
ddev start
ddev import-db --file=../.tarballs/db.sql.gz
ddev import-files --source=../.tarballs/files.tgz

Key git worktree Commands

git worktree add <path>     # Usually a relative path
git worktree list           # Show all worktrees
git worktree remove <name>  # Remove a worktree

Summary

• Remove name: from .ddev/config.yaml so each worktree uses its directory name as the project name
• Consider ddev config global --omit-project-name-by-default to make this behavior the default for all projects
• git worktree add <path> creates a new checkout sharing the same .git
• Import a database snapshot and files tarball into each worktree
• Each worktree gets its own DDEV project URL automatically

Join us for future trainings

• Sign up for the DDEV Newsletter to be informed about future trainings.
• Let us know your tips and tricks in Discord or here in the comments.

Claude Code was used to draft and review this blog.

30 Mar 2026 12:00am GMT

Following on from my last article, an introduction to HTMX in Drupal, I wanted to start looking at examples of HTMX being used to power interactivity in Drupal in different ways.

I thought a good place to start this off would be to look at using HTMX in a simple controller. By creating a route to a controller we can render content and then inject HTMX attributes to perform actions with the same controller.

In this article I will put together a controller action to load some pages of content to display them as a list. An element containing HTMX attributes will be used to make a request back to the same controller action and generate more items in the list. These new items will be appended to the existing list along with another element containing HTMX attributes that we can use to request more items.

The HTMX element will act like a "load more" button, which will load more and more content as long as there is content to load.

All of the code contained in this article can be found in the Drupal HTMX examples project on GitHub, but here we will go through what the code does and what actions it performs to generate content.

First, let's create the route to the controller.

The Route

The route we create here just links the path requested with the controller class. As we are only using a single action in this example we don't need to provide a second route for the HTMX request.

Read more

29 Mar 2026 6:08pm GMT

The Quiet Room at DrupalCon mtift March 28, 2026

March 28, 2026

Dries borrowed an idea from Fred Rogers at the Driesnote: stop everything and think of the people who helped you get here. Ten seconds. That moment, and the Quiet Room down the hall, changed how I experienced DrupalCon this year.

• Read more about The Quiet Room at DrupalCon
• Add new comment

28 Mar 2026 3:05pm GMT

27 Mar 2026 5:39pm GMT

The Drupal CMS track is back at DrupalCon Europe! Whether you are a site builder, a contributor, an agency leader, or someone just getting started with Drupal CMS, this is the place to share your story, learn from others, and help shape the future of Drupal CMS together.

From Barcelona to Rotterdam

What began as a mini-track at DrupalCon Barcelona 2024 has quickly grown into one of the most popular tracks at DrupalCon Europe. In Vienna 2025, the track showcased the journey toward Drupal CMS 1.0 - and the community responded with enthusiasm, filling sessions and sparking conversations across the event.

Image

^{Foto by PD Johnson}

Now, with Drupal CMS continuing to mature and gain adoption, DrupalCon Rotterdam 2026 is the perfect stage to highlight real-world experiences, new features, and the road ahead.

What We Are Looking For

We are interested in hearing from the innovators who are driving Drupal CMS development as well as organisations adopting Drupal CMS on topics such as:

• ​Amplify first impressions, onboarding, and quick wins for those getting started.
• ​Refine the conversation around site building, recipes, and extending functionality.
• ​Reframe the experience of moving from other platforms or upgrading from classic Drupal.
• ​Showcase how to get involved and why your contributions make an impact.
• ​Share case studies and lessons learned from real-world projects in production.
• ​Define the vision, roadmap, and community direction for the future.

Submit Your Session Proposal

Submit your session proposal today! Visit the DrupalCon Rotterdam 2026 website to submit your proposal. Whether it is a talk, a panel, or a hands-on workshop, we want to hear from you.

Meet the Track Team

The Drupal CMS track is organized by a dedicated group of community members. This year's track team includes:

• Jeremy Chinquist
• Vladimir Roudakov
• Dan Lemon

Check out all tracks and track team members here. Have questions about the track? Reach out to us on Drupal Slack or e-mail Kuoni.

DrupalCon Europe Rotterdam 2026 is shaping up to be an incredible event. The Drupal CMS track is your opportunity to contribute to the conversation, share what you have built, and connect with the community. We look forward to seeing you in Rotterdam!

27 Mar 2026 2:04pm GMT

This year, Drupal turned 25. DrupalCon Chicago felt like the right place to mark that milestone. My keynote was part celebration and part wake-up call. I talked about Drupal's foundations, how AI is putting pressure on them, and why I believe we can rebuild them stronger than before.

If you missed the keynote, you can watch the video below or download my slides (32.6 MB).

Site templates and the marketplace

About a year ago at DrupalCon Atlanta, I introduced the idea of site templates and a marketplace to go with them. By DrupalCon Vienna, we had one site template, but no marketplace.

In Chicago, I showed eleven site templates available in a basic marketplace at marketplace.drupal.org. All eleven can be installed directly from the Drupal CMS installer.

AI for site building

For more than 20 years, Drupal's ecosystem has rested on a stable triangle: the platform itself, digital agencies who bring Drupal into the real world, and the community that builds and maintains it. That triangle has proven remarkably resilient through many waves of new technologies.

But what happens when AI disrupts all three sides at the same time? In my keynote, I showed how we are responding.

I started off by showing a demo of a workflow I think will become common for Drupal agencies. You spend 15 minutes prototyping a website with AI, then convert it to a Drupal site with the help of AI and a skilled developer in a matter of hours.

AI gets you to a prototype fast. Drupal gives it the foundations that last.

Organizations will always need real workflows, permissions, security, scalability, integrations, compliance, and governance. Drupal is a great platform for this.

The demo worked because Drupal CMS ships with Drupal Canvas, which includes both CLI tools and AI skills. But the real magic comes from Drupal's foundations: the APIs, building blocks, and architecture we have developed over 25 years. This is the accidental AI advantage I talked about before. Drupal really is the best CMS for AI.

AI for content management

At DrupalCon Vienna, I introduced the Context Control Center as a rough prototype. Since then, we have added many features. It is now nearly production-ready.

The idea is straightforward: AI agents need good context to help manage tasks in Drupal. With the Context Control Center, teams define their brand voice, target audiences, key messages, product details, and editorial guidelines in one place. Then every AI agent on the site draws from this single source of truth. The result is that you create knowledge once, and scale it to all the pages and content on your website.

In my keynote, I showed two demos of the Context Control Center in action. First, Drupal's AI agents turn a simple marketing brief into a complete, on-brand page using Drupal Canvas, consulting the Context Control Center along the way. It followed brand rules, asked clarifying questions, generated structured data for search, and added cross-links.

Second, I showed a proof of concept for dynamic contexts, where the Context Control Center pulls in real-time data from Google Analytics to help improve content performance after publication.

Saying no to AI slop

AI is lowering the barrier to contribute to Open Source projects like Drupal. On paper, that sounds great. More contributors, more patches, more momentum.

But it can also be a real challenge. The volume of contributions is going up while the quality is going down. More patches are landing on a small group of maintainers, and reviewing low-quality code wastes their time.

If you're using AI to contribute, you are responsible for what you submit: don't submit code you don't understand. Our quality standards matter, and we will uphold them.

Drupal Growth Initiative

Having a great product is not enough. We also need to tell a great story. As we approach an important readiness milestone by DrupalCon Rotterdam this fall, the Drupal Association is ready to take marketing to the next level.

We are launching a Drupal Growth Initiative organized across three tracks:

• Enterprise Drupal growth
• Drupal CMS adoption
• AI leadership

Our craft always evolves

In my keynote, I also told the stories of two community members who embraced AI in a meaningful way.

Aidan Foster, who has been running Foster Interactive for 17 years, chose to go all in on the Drupal AI Initiative instead of staying on the sidelines. Together with his team, he is rebuilding the foundations of his agency to leverage AI and prepare for what is next.

And Jürgen Haas, a longtime contributor and creator of the ECA module, used AI to move at the speed of a team and make Drupal's ECA module much easier to use. In both cases, AI amplifies expertise. It does not replace it.

The world is being flooded with AI-generated average. Average is cheap now, but expertise remains hard-earned and valuable. This community has spent 25 years building it, and that is not something AI can replicate.

AI is the storm, and AI is the way through the storm. I said that first in Vienna. Six months later, I believe it more than ever. Not as a slogan, but as something I have watched happen. We need more people like Aidan and Jürgen. If you want to get involved, join us on Drupal Slack or attend DrupalCon Rotterdam this fall.

26 Mar 2026 11:06pm GMT

26 Mar 2026 8:16pm GMT

26 Mar 2026 8:00pm GMT

I'm trying here…

I got Claude to help me set up my Drupal (AI) Playground using Drupal Recipes. Claude is also writing my /docs and generating the project's CLAUDE.md (also known as an AGENTS.md) file. My exploration uses a variation of the crawl-walk-run approach to learning to use Claude Code.

At this point in my journey, running feels a little out of reach, which I am okay with because Agentic coding is a major software development paradigm shift. I'm eager to run and have Claude generate some 'production' and reviewable quality code for me. Still, when researching CLAUDE.md files, people recommend using or creating skills that simply offer reusable instructions to guide a prompt in the right direction. Installing some Drupal-specific skills should increase Claude's reliability when working with Drupal.

Still unsure what I'm doing here

I'm not sure what I'm doing here and am always seeking advice. The suggestions on Reddit range from adding agent skills and plugins to give Claude superpowers to the idea that Claude is already superpowered and doesn't need much help.

I'm skeptical about how much nudging Claude really needs when using skills. For example, I have been using Claude's Chat to plan a module without any additional context or information, and Claude is doing an excellent job generating a 'simple' module project specification. Claude fully understands Drupal APIs and some Drupalisms, but AIs are known to make mistakes; therefore, exploring skills is worthwhile and helpful for repetitive custom tasks, such as upgrading or refactoring codebases.

Ask the AI for help getting started

At this point in my AI journey, I'm between asking Claude to generate documentation and searching Google for references to include. I value that all my /docs have become iterative with AI, and I'm very optimistic...Read More

26 Mar 2026 4:04pm GMT

The DrupalCon Chicago 2026 Driesnote kicked off with a keynote that was equal parts celebration and wake-up call. With 1,310 attendees in the room and Drupal turning 25, Dries Buytaert delivered one of his most candid Driesnotes yet. He acknowledged a tough market, AI disruption hitting all sides of the Drupal ecosystem at once, and then laid out a concrete plan for what comes next.

This wasn't the typical "look what we shipped" keynote. Dries shared personal stories, showed real working demos, and ended with a direct challenge to every person in the room. I want to walk you through the 10 things that stuck with me the most.

26 Mar 2026 1:53pm GMT