How do I integrate Haystack with a content management system?

To integrate Haystack with a content management system (CMS), you’ll need to connect the CMS’s content storage to Haystack’s search and retrieval pipeline. Start by extracting content from the CMS, converting it into a format Haystack can process, and indexing it. Most CMS platforms provide APIs or export tools to access content. For example, WordPress offers a REST API, while headless CMS systems like Contentful or Strapi expose GraphQL or JSON endpoints. Use these APIs to fetch content (articles, images, metadata) and convert it into Haystack Document objects, which store text and metadata for search.

Next, set up a Haystack pipeline to index and query the data. Use Haystack’s DocumentStore (like Elasticsearch, Pinecone, or Weaviate) to store the processed content. For instance, if your CMS stores blog posts, extract the title, body, and tags, then index them in Elasticsearch via Haystack’s ElasticsearchDocumentStore. Create a pipeline that includes a retriever (like BM25 or a dense embedding model) to search the indexed data. You can also add a reader model (like Transformers-based QA) if you need answers extracted from CMS content. Expose this pipeline via an API (e.g., FastAPI or Flask) so the CMS can send user queries and display results.

Finally, ensure synchronization between the CMS and Haystack. CMS content often changes, so implement a mechanism to update the search index when content is added or modified. Use webhooks (if the CMS supports them) to trigger reindexing when content changes. For example, when a CMS user publishes a new page, the CMS can send a webhook to your Haystack service, which then fetches and indexes the updated content. If webhooks aren’t available, run periodic batch jobs to check for updates. For security, add authentication tokens to API calls between the CMS and Haystack, and consider rate limiting to prevent overload. Tools like Celery or Apache Airflow can help automate these tasks while maintaining performance.