Draft Mode gets a refresh

Vercel has updated its Draft Mode feature, aiming to simplify how teams preview unpublished content before it goes live. The tool is designed to work alongside Visual Editing, which provides real-time content editing for sites built on headless Content Management Systems. With the two features combined, edits made in a CMS can be reflected in Draft Mode the moment the page is viewed.

Draft Mode replaces the earlier Preview Mode and is now integrated directly into the Vercel toolbar on deployments. This moves the capability into the standard deployment workflow rather than requiring a separate configuration. Key capabilities include:

  • Server-rendering previews of static pages
  • Protecting unpublished content from public access
  • Working with any headless CMS provider

For teams publishing blog posts or other content through a headless CMS, Draft Mode bypasses Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) and caching for draft content. That means changes typed into the CMS are immediately available on the site, allowing content to be shared or edited without waiting for a revalidation cycle. In earlier setups, teams either had to refresh until the revalidation window passed or build a custom API endpoint with on-demand revalidation to see fresh draft content.

Visual Editing expands to more CMSes

Visual Editing, which Vercel introduced at its Ship event, is now in public beta for Pro and Enterprise customers. The company says teams at HashiCorp, Sonos, and Tome have adopted the feature since its launch.

Visual Editing relies on content source-mapping technology, which lets CMSes expose a direct link between the rendered page and the underlying content in the CMS. Sanity was the launch partner for this integration; Builder, Uniform, DatoCMS, TinaCMS, and Payload have since added support. Documentation for CMS vendors looking to implement Visual Editing support has also been made public.

With Draft Mode handling the preview layer and Visual Editing covering on-page content changes, Vercel is positioning both as complementary pieces of a broader workflow for content teams that want to move faster without involving developers in every update.