Building a High-Performance Multi-Hook DatoCMS Plugin Architecture

Impact Statement

Developed a sophisticated plugin architecture that DatoCMS staff recognized as “pushing our plugin system to its limits (in a good way).”

The Challenge

When migrating DealNews from a legacy LAMP stack to DatoCMS + Next.js, I needed to build custom functionality across multiple plugin hooks:

• Form Outlets - Custom UI elements within the record editing form
• Field Extensions - Enhanced field editors with validation
• Sidebar Panels - Real-time previews and integrations

The naive approach would create separate plugins for each hook, but this introduces problems:

• Multiple plugin instances running simultaneously
• No shared state between components
• Performance overhead from isolated bundle loading
• Duplicated code and logic

The Solution: Unified Plugin Architecture

I developed a single-plugin architecture that registers multiple hooks while sharing core functionality:

State Management with Zustand

Instead of prop drilling or context providers across iframe boundaries, I used Zustand stores that could be shared:

// Shared store accessible across all hooks
const usePluginStore = create<PluginState>((set, get) => ({
  currentRecord: null,
  previewData: null,
  hubspotObjects: [],

  setCurrentRecord: (record) => set({ currentRecord: record }),
  fetchPreview: async () => {
    const record = get().currentRecord;
    if (!record) return;
    // Fetch preview data for sidebar
  }
}));

Multi-Hook Registration

The plugin entry point registers all hooks in a single configuration:

connect({
  renderFieldExtension(fieldExtensionId, ctx) {
    return render(
      <FieldExtension id={fieldExtensionId} ctx={ctx} />
    );
  },

  renderSidebarPanel(sidebarPanelId, ctx) {
    return render(
      <SidebarPanel id={sidebarPanelId} ctx={ctx} />
    );
  },

  renderFormOutlet(formOutletId, ctx) {
    return render(
      <FormOutlet id={formOutletId} ctx={ctx} />
    );
  }
});

Lifecycle Management

One key challenge was understanding when hooks mount/unmount and how to persist state:

• Form lifecycle - Tracked via astro:before-swap and form field watchers
• State persistence - Used Zustand’s persist middleware with sessionStorage
• Cleanup - Proper event listener cleanup to prevent memory leaks

DatoCMS Staff Recognition

When discussing the architecture on the DatoCMS community forums, Roger (DatoCMS Developer) responded:

“I think by this point you are definitely pushing our plugin system to its limits (in a good way! thank you for using them so robustly), and you probably know them better than many of our staff.”

This validation confirmed the approach was both novel and valuable to the platform.

Key Learnings

1. Shared stores work across hooks - Zustand stores can be imported by any component regardless of which hook rendered it.

2. Bundle optimization matters - Tree-shaking and code splitting reduce initial load times for each hook.

3. DatoCMS SDK quirks - Some behaviors around asSidebarPanel and hook ranking required experimentation to understand.

4. Documentation gaps exist - The community forums are essential for discovering undocumented patterns.

Related Work

• Content Platform Modernization — The larger migration project this plugin supports
• DatoCMS Community Discussion — Original thread with full technical details