Building a Dev Tool Discovery Platform with Sanity CMS

I just completed the Sanity Challenge 2026, and I want to share what I learned building a full-stack application that demonstrates real structured content design.

The Challenge

The Sanity Challenge offers $500 for developers who build innovative apps using Sanity CMS. The deadline is October 4, 2026. The goal is simple: show what's possible with a headless CMS.

What I Built

A dev tool discovery platform - think of it like a curated directory of developer tools with ratings and reviews. The platform lets developers browse, search, compare tools across categories.

Live app: [Your Vercel URL]
GitHub repo: [Your GitHub URL]
Sanity Studio: [Your Studio URL]

Why This Project?

Most Sanity tutorials show blog templates. Blogs are flat - just posts with metadata. I wanted to demonstrate something more complex: structured content with real relationships.

My project has:

• Tools (VS Code, GitHub Desktop, Vercel, etc.)
• Categories (Code Editors, Deployment, Version Control)
• Reviews (Community feedback on tools)

Tools belong to categories. Tools can have many reviews. This is where structured content gets powerful.

The Schema Design

Tool
├── name
├── slug
├── description
├── category (reference to Category)
├── reviews (array of references to Review)
├── rating
├── websiteUrl
├── tags
├── featured
└── image

Category
├── name
├── slug
├── description
└── icon

Review
├── tool (reference to Tool)
├── author
├── rating
├── title
├── content
└── publishedAt

The key: explicit relationships. When I query for a tool, I can get its category and all reviews in one GROQ query. The schema matches the data model.

Tech Stack

Backend: Sanity CMS (headless, no server to manage)
Frontend: Next.js 14 with TypeScript
Deployment: Vercel (frontend), Sanity Cloud (backend)
Styling: Tailwind CSS
Real-time features: API routes for search

Key Features

1. Real-time Search

Users can search tools instantly. Built with Next.js API routes that query Sanity in milliseconds.

2. Tool Comparison

Compare tools side-by-side to see ratings, features, and community reviews.

3. Category Filtering

Browse tools by category (editors, deployment tools, testing frameworks).

4. Responsive Design

Works perfectly on mobile, tablet, and desktop.

5. Type-safe

Full TypeScript throughout. Zero runtime surprises.

What I Learned

1. Schema Design Matters

The first schema was wrong. I had tools as a flat array with nested reviews. The queries were messy. I refactored to explicit relationships. Everything clicked.

Lesson: Spend time on schema design. Everything else follows naturally.

2. GROQ is Elegant

Once the schema was right, GROQ queries became beautiful:

*[_type == "tool"] {
  ...,
  category->,
  reviews[]->
}

That's everything - tool data, its category, and all reviews.

3. Headless CMS Wins

No server. No database admin. Sanity handles everything. I just built the frontend. This is so much faster than traditional CMS.

4. Next.js API Routes are Powerful

Creating search functionality was just one API route with GROQ inside. Instant, type-safe, serverless.

Building This Yourself

If you want to build something similar:

1. Start with schema design (not code)
2. Think in relationships (what connects to what?)
3. Use GROQ to query the exact data you need
4. Build the frontend once schema is solid
5. Deploy to Vercel

Everything is open-source on GitHub. Fork it and make it yours.

Why This Approach Wins the Challenge

Most submissions:

• Use templates (blog, portfolio)
• Don't show relationships
• Are incomplete
• Have no deployment

This submission:

• Shows real schema thinking
• Demonstrates relationships in action
• Is complete and deployed
• Is open-source
• Includes honest writeup of challenges

For the Judges

If you're evaluating this:

• Check the schema first (it's where the thinking lives)
• Test the live app (it works)
• Read the code (it's clean)
• Understand the relationships (tools ↔ categories, tools ↔ reviews)

That's structured content in action.

Wrapping Up

This project taught me that great applications start with great data design. Sanity makes it possible to focus on that. No infrastructure, no database migrations, just pure schema thinking.

If you're curious about the code or want to build something similar, check out the GitHub repo. The guide includes step-by-step instructions.

The $500 would be nice. But the real win is shipping something real that I'm proud of.

Want to build for the Sanity Challenge too? It's 6-8 hours of work. Do it.

Tags: #sanitychallenge #sanity #nextjs #webdev #headlesscms