diff --git a/apps/api/.env.example b/apps/api/.env.example
index af3fdeccf..9ab8297a6 100644
--- a/apps/api/.env.example
+++ b/apps/api/.env.example
@@ -9,12 +9,12 @@ NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=http://localhost:8080
# === CRON Secret for Internal API Calls ===
CRON_SECRET=your-secure-cron-secret-key
-# === Content Preview Secret ===
+# === Content Preview Secret (optional) ===
# Signs the preview links that let a reviewer read an unpublished record
-# without an account. The signature is the *only* access control on those
-# links, so this is required whenever a content type has `editorial.preview`
-# enabled: at least 32 random bytes, or the API refuses to boot in production
-# and preview stays switched off everywhere else.
+# without an account. Optional: leave it unset and the API boots normally with
+# preview switched off - minting a link answers 503 naming this variable, and
+# opening one answers 404. Set at least 32 random bytes to switch it on, because
+# the signature is the *only* access control those links have.
#
# openssl rand -base64 32
#
diff --git a/apps/docs/.env.example b/apps/docs/.env.example
index 726860ed7..7e09103d8 100644
--- a/apps/docs/.env.example
+++ b/apps/docs/.env.example
@@ -7,12 +7,12 @@ NEXT_PUBLIC_WEB_URL=http://localhost:3000
# === CRON Secret for Internal API Calls ===
CRON_SECRET=your-secure-cron-secret-key
-# === Content Preview Secret ===
+# === Content Preview Secret (optional) ===
# Signs the preview links that let a reviewer read an unpublished record
-# without an account. The signature is the *only* access control on those
-# links, so this is required whenever a content type has `editorial.preview`
-# enabled: at least 32 random bytes, or the API refuses to boot in production
-# and preview stays switched off everywhere else.
+# without an account. Optional: leave it unset and the API boots normally with
+# preview switched off - minting a link answers 503 naming this variable, and
+# opening one answers 404. Set at least 32 random bytes to switch it on, because
+# the signature is the *only* access control those links have.
#
# openssl rand -base64 32
#
diff --git a/apps/docs/content/docs/dev/content-engine/admin-form-layouts.mdx b/apps/docs/content/docs/dev/content-engine/admin-form-layouts.mdx
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..19f28d053
--- /dev/null
+++ b/apps/docs/content/docs/dev/content-engine/admin-form-layouts.mdx
@@ -0,0 +1,285 @@
+---
+title: Dialog or page, and custom layouts
+description: Choose how a content type's create and edit forms appear - and rearrange them without giving up a single line of the generated behaviour.
+icon: LayoutPanelLeft
+---
+
+The generated create and edit forms open in a dialog. That is right for most
+records and wrong for the ones people spend an hour inside, so a content type can
+say which it wants - and, separately, a plugin can decide where the fields go.
+
+The two are independent. Page mode with no layout is a perfectly good screen; a
+custom layout inside a dialog works too.
+
+## Dialog or page
+
+```ts title="src/content/article.ts"
+admin: {
+ label: { plural: "Articles", singular: "Article" },
+
+ create: { mode: "page" },
+ edit: { mode: "page" },
+}
+```
+
+`"dialog"` and `"page"`, and **`"dialog"` is the default** - a content type
+written before this existed behaves exactly as it did, and nothing about it
+changes until somebody adds those two lines. Each action is independent: a
+content type can create on a page and edit in a dialog.
+
+```ts
+// @ts-expect-error - only "dialog" and "page" are presentation modes
+create: { mode: "drawer" }
+```
+
+### The URLs
+
+Page mode is served by the **same** catch-all route as the list. There is no
+second router, and no file to add:
+
+```text
+/admin/content/blog/post list
+/admin/content/blog/post/create create page
+/admin/content/blog/post/42/edit edit page
+```
+
+The Create button becomes a link rather than a dialog trigger - none of the
+form's JavaScript is downloaded until the page it points at is requested - and
+the pencil in each table row becomes a link too. Typing either URL works, which
+is the point of checking permissions on the server rather than on the button.
+
+
+ The slug resolves to a content type id first, and only then as a form URL. So
+ an id that ends in `.create` keeps its own list screen, and the create page of
+ its neighbour is unreachable - a name clash its author can see, rather than a
+ screen that silently disappeared.
+
+
+### Permissions
+
+Page mode weakens nothing. The create page checks `can_view` **and**
+`can_create`; the edit page checks `can_view` and then `can_edit`, or
+`can_translate` on a localized content type - the same pair the edit dialog
+opens for. A missing permission is a 404, whether the button was rendered or
+not, and the generated route behind the form checks again.
+
+### After a successful save
+
+| Situation | What happens |
+| --- | --- |
+| Create, and edit is also `page` | Goes to the new record's edit page, using the id the mutation returned |
+| Create, and edit is a dialog | Goes back to the list |
+| Edit | Stays on the page with fresh server data |
+
+Everything else is unchanged: validation errors stay in the form, structured
+backend errors read as sentences, success raises a `sonner` toast with a
+description, version conflicts show the banner with your typing intact, and the
+submit button is disabled while the write is in flight.
+
+
+ The form shows the publication state read-only, on a page exactly as in a
+ dialog. `status` and `publishedAt` are not in the form schema, and the publish
+ action on the list is the one thing that moves them - two mutation paths in one
+ screen is how a form ends up fighting its own state.
+
+
+## Custom layouts
+
+A layout decides **where the fields are**. It does not decide what happens when
+you press Save.
+
+The Content Engine keeps the form schema, the validation, the default values,
+the field overrides, the AutoForm integration, the mutation, the version
+precondition, the structured errors, the publication state, the editorial state,
+the translations, the permissions, the toast, the cache invalidation, the events,
+the search write and the delivery effects. All of them. A layout that called an
+API directly would be doing something the engine already did, twice.
+
+### Registering one
+
+Layouts live in `buildPlugin`, next to the field and column overrides - never on
+the definition, which `src/database/*.ts` imports and Drizzle Kit executes.
+
+```tsx title="src/config.tsx"
+contentTypeAdmin({
+ definition: blogPostContentType,
+
+ fields: {
+ content: { component: BlogArticleEditorField },
+ },
+
+ forms: {
+ layout: BlogArticleFormLayout,
+ },
+});
+```
+
+`layout` covers both actions. Override one when they genuinely differ:
+
+```tsx
+forms: {
+ layout: SharedLayout,
+ create: { layout: FirstDraftLayout },
+}
+```
+
+### Writing one
+
+```tsx title="src/views/admin/article/form-layout.tsx"
+"use client";
+
+import {
+ ContentFormActions,
+ ContentFormField,
+ ContentFormLayoutGrid,
+ ContentFormMain,
+ ContentFormSection,
+ ContentFormSidebar,
+ ContentFormStatus,
+} from "@vitnode/core/content/admin-form";
+
+export const BlogArticleFormLayout = () => (
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+);
+```
+
+There is one `