Drupal Planet

We’re excited to announce that a draft Drupal Site Template MVP Marketplace proposal will be released next week for public comment. This version outlines a clear Minimum Valuable Product (MVP) focused on early value, sustainability, and trust.

But first — here’s a look at what’s been shaping the direction of this proposal.

To help align on strategy and priorities for the Site Template Marketplace, the Working Group created a Business Model Canvas—a simple tool that breaks down the core elements of how the Marketplace can deliver value and remain sustainable. The Working Group landed on an MVP  model that centers:

• Primary Users: Low-code/no-code marketers and freelancer agencies
• Key Value: Trusted, flexible site templates that reduce time-to-launch and lower adoption barriers
• Revenue Stream: application and referral fees on sales and upsell opportunities to support Drupal Association infrastructure
• Cost Structure: Low-overhead pilot with both automated and staff-supported review

More than 500 people have shared their perspectives across four surveys—and others have weighed in through Slack discussions, real-time collaboration, and open conversations.

This community and end-user input has been honest, nuanced, and incredibly generous. It has revealed clear patterns, thoughtful tensions, and strong signals of where the community wants to go. So as in advance of the MVP proposal’s release, let’s reflect back what we’ve heard so far.

Both in survey responses and in Slack, the message was the same: don’t launch unless people can trust what they’re getting.

Top trust signals:

• A live demo or preview (most consistently requested signal across all channels)
• Clear documentation of dependencies and limitations
• Visible signals of quality (badges, reviews, contributor reputation)

In Slack, people emphasized that even a great theme becomes untrustworthy if it’s hardcoded, inaccessible, or unclear about what it installs.

Show me a demo. Let me see the code. If it’s a mystery box, I won’t touch it.”

From contributors and module maintainers to end users and evaluators, we heard a common theme: this effort should feel like Drupal.

• Governance should be fair, transparent, and enforceable—not performative.
• Monetization is okay—but must support the whole ecosystem, not just those selling templates.
• Attribution matters. Contributors want to be credited, not cloned.

If someone else is profiting off my work, I need to at least be recognized.”

Slack also raised the importance of review pathways that aren’t vulnerable to sabotage or bias—suggesting a need for a mix of automation and paid staff to ensure fairness.

End users want this. Freelancers want this. Agencies want this.

• 85% of end-user survey respondents said vetted templates would increase their likelihood of recommending Drupal.
• Agencies see templates as a powerful tool for demos, pre-sales, and fast-start projects.
• Contributors are eager to participate—if it’s worth their time.

• Users: Many want free or low-cost templates, especially smaller orgs and nonprofits.
• Contributors: Cite $300–$1,000 as reasonable price points for a complete, maintained, accessible, and documented product.

Slack conversations added nuance: Some contributors are fine with lower prices if the marketplace generates leads or recognition. Others say without fair compensation, they simply won’t participate.

• Users want badges that help them sort and trust.
• Contributors fear certification could slow things down or create an unfair playing field.

Slack participants suggested offering optional badges or tiers, not mandatory certification at launch. A common theme: start lightweight, evolve with real usage.

There’s broad support for monetization—but only if it’s done with intention.

• Contributors want clear, fair revenue splits—and protection against cloned or stripped-down copies.
• Users don’t want to encounter bait-and-switch upsells or gated features.
• Slack conversations reinforced a desire to avoid WordPress-style chaos, emphasizing community moderation, ranking hygiene, and a meaningful DA role.

This has to feel like Drupal, not like a spammy plugin store.”

The Community public comment period will be open from 27 June 2025 through 13 July 2025. The Marketplace Working Group will meet on 15 July 2025 to review feedback and draft its final recommendation to the board for their go/no-go decision on 24 July 2025.

You will be able to share your thoughts by:

• Anonymous feedback form
• Issue queue
• In Drupal Slack in #drupal-cms-marketplace

Thank you to everyone who contributed through surveys, Slack, working sessions, and feedback. Your ideas, critiques, hopes, and flags are shaping this from the inside out. All of this feedback has resulted in a proposal that’s practical, community-aligned, and intentionally minimal.

This Marketplace effort is grounded in community—not just as a value, but as a working method. We’re exploring the Marketplace potential together — ideally, to create something not just to reduce friction for new users, but to grow a stronger, more sustainable Drupal ecosystem for all.

Stay tuned.

This article was originally published on the BackUpScale blog.

Our customer dashboard, which will soon be used for managing subscriptions to our backup service (and not just newsletters and our contact form, as we’re doing now), is built on the Drupal data management framework. Until now, we’ve been hosting it with a company that specializes in hosting very specific types of applications, like Drupal. This wasn’t working for us because our service is running in our Kubernetes cluster at a cloud service provider that specializes in managed Kubernetes hosting, which let’s us run whatever applications we want, and configure them however we need. The challenge was getting the dashboard to communicate securely with our other applications.

It needs to communicate with our back-end systems in the Kubernetes cluster to:

1. send requests from customers to provision services,
2. configure customer accounts, and
3. receive status information from back-end services to create log entries that users can see in their accounts.

In order for things to work with the old set up, we’d have to:

• expose internal applications to the Internet (so the dashboard site could access them), and
• add additional layers of security to the communications to ensure privacy.

We didn’t feel as confident with this set-up as moving everything into our private Kubernetes network, which protects all of our services with a single firewall. Keeping non-public facing services within that network ensures that they’re not accessible by anyone on the greater Internet (except our staff using the company VPN), which ensures greater security and privacy for our users.

In order to make the change, we needed to be able to run a Drupal site within Kubernetes. Given that Drupal is a popular framework, and Kubernetes is a popular container orchestration system, we assumed that there would be good options for putting them together using open-source infrastructure as code (IaC) to handle the automated provisioning (we automate everything here). However, we weren’t able to find anything that could help us.

We explored the following options:

• Bitnami’s Helm chart (no longer supported as of 2021)
• Jeff Geerling’s Drupal Operator (no longer supported as of early 2025)

The Bitnami Helm chart did at least one very strange thing: It was placing the Drupal code files on the persistent volume instead of placing them in the container image. We wanted the Drupal code (or at least the Composer files that build it along with any custom code) to be version controlled with Git. When we tried to work around this, they made it very difficult to make these changes.

Jeff Geerling simply stopped recommending his earlier approach (except for potentially hosting many sites on a hosting platform), and said that he currently uses his own Kubernetes primitives. So we took that idea, and expanded on it to build a fairly complete solution. Once we had something that worked for us, we believed we could make it generic enough to make it available to everyone else. So that’s what we did.

This move eliminated two Internet-facing endpoints and let us apply a single network-policy layer to all microservices. Additionally, running inside the cluster removes a public load balancer, and shrinks latency.

Because we automate all of our infrastructure with Terraform, we just released Drubernetes, a new module in the Terraform Registry, which provisions Drupal onto a generic Kubernetes cluster. It shouldn’t matter where your cluster is, who’s managing it for you, or if you’re managing it yourself on your own hardware. We wanted to provide something standardized that everyone can use and build from.

Contributions are welcome! Please try it, and provide any feedback that you may have. The project is hosted on Gitlab.com, and any issues can be opened from the board.

As always, if you have questions or feedback, feel free to reach out. We appreciate your support and can’t wait to bring you the next chapter of BackupScale.

Filmed at the AI Summit at London Tech Week 2025, this two-minute video captures the passion and purpose behind the newly-launched Drupal AI Strategic Initiative.

Join Baddý and Jamie as they explain why this work is important and why we need the Drupal community to rally behind it.

“In order to get fast innovation in Drupal AI, we need people to work on the project—and we’re doing that by getting funding and full-time contributors from participating companies.”

— Baddý Sonja Breidert

“I’ve never seen something quite like this in the Drupal community… It’s coordinated innovation not for one company, but for the whole open source community.”

— Jamie Abrahams

We led a rebuild and redesign of Free Press’ Drupal website to modernize its codebase, expand its storytelling features, and refresh its design system.

The Web Chefs

January 1, 1970

• Consolidated nearly 300 legacy websites into a single, cohesive Drupal-powered platform.
• Achieved outstanding performance scores, including Lighthouse scores as high as 99 and an exceptionally fast homepage (FCP of 0.5 seconds).
• Implemented sophisticated, easy-to-use authoring tools, empowering 130+ content creators.
• Enhanced accessibility and SEO to ensure NDSU’s content reaches and resonates with more students.

We’re thrilled to announce that North Dakota State University has officially launched the new NDSU.edu — a dynamic platform designed to attract, engage, and inspire prospective students.

Facing a rapidly changing digital landscape, North Dakota State University took a bold step to revolutionize its online presence. By investing in a transformative digital platform, NDSU has solidified itself as a forward-thinking leader committed to delivering an outstanding, cohesive experience for prospective students.

North Dakota State University

We now have an amazing authoring experience and an engaging web presence that reflects the vibrancy of the NDSU community.

—Lindsay Condry, Web Manager

The editing experience developed for NDSU is among the most sophisticated and user-friendly we’ve ever created. Using Drupal’s Layout Paragraphs module, editors can effortlessly design dynamic content layouts using intuitive drag-and-drop tools, enjoying real-time visual previews and hundreds of flexible layout combinations — giving them unprecedented control, speed, and confidence in content management.

At the heart of NDSU’s digital transformation was the innovative “Web Principals” initiative. These campus-wide champions didn’t just adopt new technology — they actively shaped its success by facilitating collaboration, peer-to-peer support, and fostering a genuine sense of community ownership. We also provided extensive training on a variety of topics — everything from page layout to writing effective copy for the web  — during live office hours and in a publicly available knowledge base. This unique approach not only smoothed the transition but ensured long-term success and sustainability by “training the trainers,” ultimately building a team of more than 130 content creators across campus.

Four Kitchens

The Web Principals became our change leaders. They’re the power users and the first line of support, making sure knowledge spreads across campus.

—Megan Bygness Bradley, Technical Project Manager

Prospective students now engage with academic offerings in an entirely new way through NDSU’s visually immersive, Netflix-style program finder. Organized by compelling themes such as ‘Pursue a Career with Purpose,’ this innovative approach makes program discovery intuitive and enjoyable, directly supporting students in finding their ideal academic path.

We engineered a custom migration strategy that consolidated nearly 300 TYPO3 sites — plus a couple of legacy Drupal sites — into a single, flexible Drupal platform. To modernize the frontend, we used AI-enhanced coding tools to convert two outdated Angular applications into lean, vanilla JavaScript, saving considerable time and complexity and reducing long-term technical debt.

Four Kitchens

AI helped us unravel messy Angular apps, turning them into clear, documented code that saved hours of guesswork.

—Jim Vomero, Senior Engineer

• Unified brand identity: Transitioned nearly 300 disparate sites into a unified brand experience — “One NDSU, One Voice” — strengthening NDSU’s identity and clarity of messaging across all digital touchpoints.
• Editor empowerment and efficiency: Implemented advanced, user-friendly authoring tools, dramatically reducing content publishing time, minimizing training, and increasing editor confidence.
• Community engagement and ownership: Successfully trained more than 130 content editors campus-wide through a unique “Web Principals” initiative, creating an active community of empowered, knowledgeable users committed to continuous improvement.
• Speed and performance: With Lighthouse scores as high as 99 on internal pages and a homepage loading in half a second, visitors experience incredibly smooth, fast interactions — improving engagement and reducing bounce rates.
• Significant accessibility and SEO improvements: Achieved near-perfect accessibility and SEO scores, ensuring inclusivity, compliance, and maximized online visibility to attract more prospective students.

This launch isn’t the end — it’s just the beginning! As NDSU’s digital partner, our Continuous Care support program will constantly improve their platform, ensuring it remains flexible, secure, and ready to adapt to future needs.

Congratulations to the entire NDSU team! Explore their impressive new site at NDSU.edu.

Is your school’s web platform ready for an overhaul? Let’s talk!

The post Launch announcement: North Dakota State University’s new digital platform appeared first on Four Kitchens.

One of the many benefits of the Tag1 D7ES service is that we notify you of any updates and provide security patches for all contrib and core modules you use - including free compatibility updates for Apache Solr! Apache Solr is a widely-used, open-source search platform that provides indexing, faceted search, and other features above and beyond plain-text string matching. Only version 9.x is currently supported by the community, with previous versions declared end-of-life (EOL) and no longer receiving security support. Two Solr integration modules for Drupal 7 (D7) saw wide usage, Apache Solr Search and Search API Solr. As of Drupal 7 EOL, these modules only supported Solr through version 7.x, meaning the D7 sites that wanted to continue using Solr were forced to use these older, unsupported versions. Hosting providers for D7 sites also needed to maintain outdated infrastructure for their customers. ## Tag1 D7ES updates Solr support Tag1 recently released updates to the Apache Solr Search and Search API Solr modules for all Tag1 D7ES customers, with support for Apache Solr versions 8.x and 9.x. This allows D7 sites to utilize Solr’s major improvements, including * Improved security * Improved stability * Improved scalability * Improved logging...

Join Mike Miles and Aubrey Sambor as they discuss their experiences with public speaking at tech conferences, including the challenges and joys of presenting technical and big-picture talks. Dive into their personal summer plans, ranging from trips to Cape Cod and Asheville to beer festivals and camping adventures. The conversation also explores recent technology updates, such as Figma's site builder and Apple's new 'Liquid Glass' design, emphasizing the importance of accessibility. Tune in for a casual, insightful chat about professional growth, summer fun, and the ever-evolving tech landscape.

For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/cafe005

Mike is passionate about development and working with the latest open source technologies. He has been working in web engineering since 2003, utilizing a number of different technologies, languages and frameworks. He has been working with Drupal since 2008 and is a regular contributor to the community and project. From 2015 to 2024 he was the lead organizer of the Boston Drupal Meetup Group. Since 2017 has been one of the organizers of New England Drupal Camp.

In his day-to-day role as Director of Web Development at MIT Sloan, Mike leads the development, maintenance and growth of the digital properties for the school, as well as, the development team that supports them. He is a public speaker and regularly presents at technical conferences around the world. Since 2013 Mike has presented dozens of talks at many different conferences/camps across the globe.

Aubrey is a lead front end developer and accessibility advocate with over 19 years of experience in software development and leadership. She specializes in writing modern CSS, semantic HTML, and performant JavaScript and brings almost two decades of experience in web development across higher education, non-profits, and public sector projects.

Aubrey is an active member of the Drupal community, contributing to open source initiatives and speaking at regional and national conferences. She champions accessibility best practices and writes about front end development, music reviews, and knitting projects on her blog, aubreysambor.com.

When she's not coding, Aubrey enjoys running, spinning her own yarn, fountain pens, and exploring local coffee shops and breweries.

• Casual Conversation and Weather
• Fitness Routines and Treadmills
• Podcast Preferences
• Remote Work and Buffer Time
• Job Search and Conference Experience
• Travel Stories and Conference Talks
• Halloween and Conference Talks
• Evolving as a Speaker
• Technical vs. Idea-Driven Talks
• Managing Bugs and Building Trust
• Balancing Multiple Talks
• Figma Sites and Accessibility Concerns
• Apple's Liquid Glass Design
• Nostalgia for Old Tech
• Summer Plans and Conferences

Mike Miles - mike-miles.com mikemiles86 Aubrey Sambor - aubreysambor.com starshaped

Digitizing a print format usually brings new opportunities and challenges. The biggest advantage is greater flexibility. Thanks to digitization, facts & figures can now be continuously updated and distributed more easily. In collaboration with the design agency Usable Brands, we reinterpreted existing visualizations from the print medium for the digital, responsive format. A key challenge here was to generalize possible exceptions and find reusable components that could cover as many cases as possible.

In iterative steps, we supplemented the design process with a digital prototype in order to test and improve the real experience in the digital world.

One challenge was that the final data was not yet available during development. We were able to test the visualizations with test data from previous years, but clarity about the requirements only developed in the course of the project, as the data was delivered and processed.

We paid particular attention to ensuring that the solution could be scaled as data changed and that editors could customize the display of data within the CI/CD framework.

Since both data and the size of users' devices can vary, we developed solutions that optimize the charts for smartphones first, but also for desktop devices. For very small datasets, we do not use labels and only display them when interacted with. Labels for rows appear above the row on mobile devices, while on desktop devices we use the available space and display the row labels directly at the beginning of the row. Particularly long line charts are made accessible on mobile devices by horizontal scrolling, while on desktop devices the chart can be displayed in its entirety. The donut charts benefit from the fact that we scale the labels according to the size of the pie slice – small values are displayed with smaller labels and larger values with larger labels.

You can visit Fakten und Zahlen at the pharmaSuisse website.

Below are some examples of how the facts and figures were visualized:

To support design and preparation as efficiently as possible, we have expanded the blökkli editor to include chart functions. First, the data is uploaded in a structured form, e.g. as a CSV file.

In a second step, the editorial team can interactively prepare the structured data in blökkli. The selection of predefined color palettes and sliders for settings help to optimally adjust the positioning and display.

Charts can also be exported as PDF files. Editors can manually set line breaks to optimize the layout of the chart pages.

The interactive charts for pharmaSuisse have been successfully released and are continuously updated. pharmaSuisse benefits in that facts can be sent directly via digital channels and updated regularly. We are currently planning the second iteration: the presentation of facts will be optimized, with a focus on interactions and readability.

Many thanks to pharmaSuisse for their trust and cooperation. Thank you Usable Brands as well as Jan Hug and Jens Vranckz from our team for the implementation! We are delighted to be able to create and further develop an appealing visualization for facts and figures.

Among the latest Drupal innovations, one stands out as especially bold, ambitious, and full of promise: a new version of Drupal designed to bring the power of the platform to non-developers. Known as Drupal CMS — and previously codenamed “Starshot” — it’s earning plenty of well-deserved attention.

DrupalCon has always been a conference by the community, for the community—and as we look ahead to DrupalCon North America 2026 in Chicago, we’re making thoughtful changes to ensure it continues to reflect those values.

After a successful DrupalCon Atlanta, we’ve taken time to reflect, gather feedback, and make updates that prioritize access, sustainability, and community connection.  Each of the changes outlined below is rooted in one or more of these values—whether it's improving affordability, building lasting relationships, or creating a more efficient and inclusive event experience. With guidance from the DrupalCon North America Steering Committee, we’re excited to share a refreshed ticket structure, updated volunteer policies, a reimagined Expo Hall, and a renewed focus on summits, trainings, and collaboration.

We’ve simplified and lowered the cost of general admission tickets to make DrupalCon more accessible—without sacrificing the quality of experience our community expects. These changes were driven by feedback from past DrupalCon attendees, the North American Steering Committee, and the community at large, all of whom expressed a strong desire for more affordable access to the event.

Ticket Tier

Atlanta 2025

Chicago 2026

Savings

Early Bird

$890

$575

$315

Regular

$990

$700

$290

Late/Onsite

$1,190

$850

$340

Early Bird registration opens September 15, 2025 and is open for 16 weeks!
Secure your ticket early to lock in the best rate.

For every 5 tickets purchased from a Drupal camp or local association, that community will receive 1 complimentary ticket to share with a deserving community member, with a max of 10 complimentary tickets per local camp or association. It's our way of reinvesting in local leadership and participation.

This change reflects our focus on access and sustainability. In our DrupalCon Atlanta recap blog, we highlighted how streamlined operations improved the event experience for attendees and volunteers alike. Building on that momentum, we recognized the need for clearer guidelines to ensure volunteer opportunities are distributed fairly and effectively.

We’ve updated the volunteer ticket structure to make it more equitable and scalable:

• Volunteer under 20 hours → 25% discount
• Volunteer 20+ hours → Complimentary ticket

These tickets are non-transferable and may not be combined with other discounts.

Previously, volunteer ticket codes were sometimes misused or distributed without proper oversight. These updated guidelines help preserve full complimentary tickets for those who contribute a significant amount of time and effort, while also creating new opportunities for others to attend at a reduced rate.

Additionally, we’ve streamlined the on-site registration process with self-check-in, reducing the need for a large number of on-site volunteers and allowing us to focus support where it’s most impactful.

Learn more and sign up to volunteer.

Summits are one of DrupalCon’s most valuable opportunities for industry-specific collaboration and knowledge sharing. Designed to connect attendees working in the same verticals, these events offer focused access to speakers with real-world experience, engaging roundtable discussions with peers in similar roles, and meaningful conversations about shared challenges. Attendees walk away with practical takeaways and lasting connections, while participating sponsors have a chance to introduce themselves to leaders in the space in an organic, relevant way.

Taking place Monday, 23 March 2026.

Join peers in:

• Healthcare
• Higher Education
• Government
• Nonprofit
• Community

Each summit features two half-day sessions that do not conflict with the main conference program, creating space for meaningful discussion and idea sharing.

Summit Type

Atlanta 2025

Chicago 2026

Industry Summit

$250

$300

Community Summit

Free

Free for RippleMaker members, $50 for non-member
(Click HERE to become a Ripple Maker)

Lunch is not included with the Community Summit, but a lunch ticket add-on will be available for purchase during registration.

DrupalCon Trainings remain at $500 and offer deep-dive, expert-led learning opportunities on a wide range of Drupal skills.

You’ll notice more networking spaces, and informal meeting zones—especially in the Expo Hall and hallways. We’re doubling down on meaningful, unstructured connections.

These changes are only possible through thoughtful cost management and the continued support of our sponsors. Their partnership helps us keep ticket prices accessible while delivering the high-quality experience the community expects. We’re grateful to those who invest in DrupalCon and help us create an event that welcomes and supports everyone.

The Drupal Association is happy to issue official invitation letters for those requiring a visa.

Request your visa letter here.

Letters are generated automatically—just complete the form and check your email (including spam folders).

Milestone

Date

Program at a Glance Released

6 June 2025

Call for Speakers Opens

21 July 2025

Early Bird Registration Opens

15 September 2025

Call for Speakers Closes

26 September 2025

Grants & Scholarships Applications Open

1 October 2025

Grants & Scholarships Applications Close

31 October 2025

Session Notifications to Speakers

12 November 2025

Grant & Scholarship Recipients Announced

12 November 2025

Regular Registration Opens

5 January 2026

Conference Schedule Available

13 January 2026

Late Registration Opens

23 February 2026

DrupalCon Chicago

23-26 March 2026

Hilton Chicago is DrupalCon’s official headquarters hotel—and it's where the magic happens.

From morning coffee chats to late-night strategy sessions in the lobby, this is where the community connects. Staying on-site helps you maximize your time, make spontaneous connections, and be part of the full experience.

Book your room at the Hilton Chicago.

We’re reimagining our sponsorship offerings to better connect you with the Drupal community—bringing fresh opportunities and updated packages designed for greater visibility, value, and impact.

Want to be the first to know when they go live? Email [email protected] and we’ll make sure you're on the list.

DrupalCon is more than just a conference—it’s the beating heart of our community. These changes help us keep that heart strong, inclusive, and accessible.

We can’t wait to see you in Chicago, 23-26 March 2026. 

Working with Drupal requires certain experience, knowledge, and skills. Even if you successfully create a project on Drupal, in the near future, you will need to install updates and upgrade the site. To avoid doing this manually, use a convenient new solution.
Drupal Auto-Updates in 2025 is a new option for auto-website updates. Thus, you can forget about constant control of each patch or fix. The system will independently and automatically work through everything if necessary.
Today you will learn all the necessary details about Drupal auto-updates and how this will affect web development and website owners in the future.

Drupal is entering a new era, transforming into an AI-first CMS. Powered by open, ethical, and human-centred AI.

We’re proud to launch the free webinar training series offered in partnership with the European Commission. These free, public webinars are designed to equip the global Drupal community with practical skills, architectural understanding, and the ethical frameworks needed to work with AI inside Drupal. Whether you’re a developer, site builder, content strategist, or part of a digital agency team, there’s something here for you.

The series brings together contributors from across the open source AI ecosystem, featuring maintainers of the AI module, members of the Drupal AI Strategic Initiative, and the wider Drupal CMS innovation team.

We really believe that the process of contributing—of trying things out, experimenting on difficult problems—helps bring AI knowledge into both individuals and their organisations.
 Jamie Abrahams

“Bringing Drupal AI into your  DNA - How to Learn, Use and Contribute to the Drupal AI Ecosystem”, aired live on 10 June and is available to watch on YouTube. Hosted by Jamie Abrahams (FreelyGive) with a guest appearance from Drupal founder Dries Buytaert (Acquia), this session outlined the architecture, vision, and community momentum behind Drupal’s approach to AI.

It introduced viewers to:

• The AI module and its plugin-based approach to LLM providers
• Use cases like content automation, accessibility improvements, and semantic search
• The ethical principles guiding Drupal’s AI efforts: Trust, Transparency, and Choice
• Drupal AI Agents and Swarms: modular, no-code AI orchestration already in use today
• A strategic roadmap that includes tight integration with upcoming Experience Builder features and MCP (Model Context Protocol)

We imagine a future where site builders define the goal—like 300 event signups—and AI agents get to work alongside humans to make it happen.
Dries Buytaert

In the coming months, the webinar series continues with targeted training sessions that build upon each other. All sessions are free, recorded, and open to the public.

• 1 July: Installing the AI Module & Basic Features
• 2 September: AI Search
• 23 September: AI Agents (No-Code Creation)
• 7 October: Advanced: Build AI Agents with Code

Each webinar will include demonstrations, practical walk-throughs, and guidance on how to get started, contribute back, and explore AI ethically in your Drupal projects.

AI is not a substitute for human intelligence—it’s a tool to amplify human creativity and ingenuity.
Jamie Abrahams

You can sign up for upcoming sessions and explore the series details. This is your opportunity to learn from the team building the future of Drupal and to participate in shaping it. Are you interested in content automation, smarter search, accessibility tooling, or advanced AI orchestration? Then this series is for you.

We can’t skip the human-in-the-loop. It’s essential that humans stay in control, and that AI in Drupal remains transparent, auditable, and ethical.
Dries Buytaert

If you believe in the power of open source, ethical tech, and community-led innovation, this is where to begin.
 

When a client has a need or idea that other people might benefit from, it's a great opportunity to contribute a module back to the community. I recently created the new Autocreate Access module to solve a problem on a project where Drupal's autocomplete tagging widget for taxonomy terms didn't work as our client expected. Typically, Drupal sites utilise this field widget to allow users to create new categories for their content on the fly. However, our client wanted to prevent ordinary site visitors from being able to create new tags, but still be able to select from existing ones - whilst allowing privileged editors to create tags from the same widget. 

Without this module, Drupal doesn't make that distinction between different kinds of users: either everyone who can use the widget can create new terms, or none of them can!

Drupal already has excellent access controls in place, using roles and permissions for granular control over what different kinds of visitors can see and do. It even includes specific CRUD permissions for each vocabulary of terms that this widget allows picking from. So all I needed to do was wire up the autocomplete tagging widget to respect the existing permission for creating terms in the vocabulary for these tags. Install the module, and then configure it in any fields you want to use it for: simply tick the 'Respect access' box on Drupal's configuration form for editing a field:

As the description beneath the checkbox in that screenshot implies - this applies to any entity, not just taxonomy terms! The 'Tags style' autocomplete widgets are most commonly used with taxonomy terms, but they can be used on any entity reference field. Given that access controls around other entity types often need to be tighter, I can see this being an important tool to allow the easy editing that this widget provides, without circumventing restrictions!

Under the hood, the autocomplete widget uses Drupal's entity_autocomplete form element, which uses an #autocreate property to control how unmatched tags should be handled. (Hence 'autocreate' in my module's name!) The field widget simply populates this with the vocabulary/bundle selected in the field configuration. The Autocreate Access module just adds a check to enforce that the #autocreate property is only set when the currently logged-in user actually has access to create those terms/entities.

You might think that perhaps Drupal should do this by default - and it's an open question that's been asked before which is probably worth addressing in core. But I can appreciate that many websites still want to allow easy free-tagging without having to think about permissions (or giving direct access to full standalone forms for creating terms). Changing that behaviour could break backwards-compatibility, which might not be worth the hassle of delivering a change within core. At least this new module now makes it easy to choose whether to respect vocab permissions when creating tags on the fly. 

I've just tagged (get it?!) the first stable release of the new Autocreate Access module - please let me know how you get on with it or if you have any ideas for it!