Define, register, and use content collections in OlonJS - Olon

Collections let you manage any set of typed content entities — posts, products, team members, or any other structured domain object — as JSON records. Each record is validated against a Zod schema, visible in Studio, and queryable across related collections. This guide walks you through creating a collection from scratch.

Field descriptor annotations

The .describe() string on a Zod field controls the input widget Studio renders for that field. Without an annotation, Studio falls back to a plain text input.

Descriptor	Studio widget
`ui:text`	Single-line text input
`ui:textarea`	Multi-line text area
`ui:select`	Dropdown menu (uses the `z.enum` values as options)
`ui:number`	Number input
`ui:list`	Repeatable list of text items
`ui:collection-ref`	Generic collection selector (any registered collection)
`ui:collection-ref:<collectionName>`	Collection selector scoped to a specific collection — e.g. `ui:collection-ref:tags` renders a dropdown of tag entries

These annotations are read-only hints to the Studio UI. They have no effect on schema validation or the runtime data shape.