Opinionated Out-of-the-Box Apps Incoming

We have been “quiet” for a few months, piecing together the new NEO universal app, core UNA CMS update and a handful of new modules. All these updates are a bit different from the regular new modules and bug fixes. So different, in fact that we had to re-think how to package, ship, and support UNA.

I’ll share the observations first, then takeaways, then the news...

Observations

1. Native Apps give a huge advantage. While UNA is responsive and can be shipped as a PWA, native apps from App Stores with interactive, platform-specific UI consistently attract more engagement. For social platforms, 8 out of 10 returning users typically prefer native apps. 
2. React Web App has greater potential. While the UNA classic UI holds its ground, the Next.js web app exported from the NEO universal app repo represents a significant upgrade. Features like data-prefetching, WebSocket updates, aggressive caching, and virtualized lists enable high-performance modern web apps. UNA CMS is a fantastic API server and admin interface, but for user-facing applications, server-rendered SPAs are the superior choice.
3. AI is powerful, promising, yet temperamental. The AI Agents module is theoretically capable of creating automations and tools to compensate for missing modules or integrated services. Its potential is immense, but it requires further research and tooling to unlock fully. However, AI often behaves unpredictably, being overly confident when it shouldn’t be, and needs careful supervision. 
4. Docs are hard, for two reasons. First, while writing docs isn’t such a big deal, keeping them up to date is hard. We make hundreds of commits for each update and many affect logic to the point that docs require updates. the second reason is justtaposed to the first one - people just don’t read docs. The amount of times we have to explain the same things that are already covered in docs over and over and staggering. 
5. 99% of the issues are “Day 1 stumbles”. Nearly every problem UNA operators report stems from initial setup, hosting environment, or basic configuration challenges. 

Takeaways

We need to make it easier to deploy react apps. 

At the moment we only build apps under custom professional support agreements. It’s a very nuanced and tailored approach, taking us a number of weeks to prepare backend and the apps for production deployment. We need to make it more accessible for UNA CMS users to launch the apps.

Pre-configured opinionated kits work best.

The way to make deployment easier is to provide an initial configuration that serves an actual use-case. UNA CMS is powerful, but the “anything is possible” can also mean that its not suitable for anyuthing in particular out of the box. So, we need to focus more on the starter kits, tied with matching pre-preconfigured API and React apps. 

AI should interpret docs and knowledge.

If we maintain and update knowdlege base continuously, we can train AI to interpret it and help UNA users understand the system. 

Steps

UNA 14 Release

The upcoming release of UNA 14 is heavily focused on API, compatibility with NEO apps and the Agents module for AI-automations. We’re likely to have one more RC shortly followed by final release.

Spacenook + NEO Bundle Starter Kit

Spacenook starter kit is getting an update to UNA 14, some configuration changes and most importantly settings pre-set to work with NEO. It will also include a pre-configured NEO apps package. 

AI assistant in UNA Studio and UNA CMS

Still quite experimental at this stage, but we should soon be able to provide a built-in AI-powered assistant chat within Studio helping with configuration, as well as a documentation assistant here at UNA CMS. 

Share more about ongoing dev

We’ve been to quiet recently, even though in recent months we made more really exciting changes than ever. We should tell more now and show what’s happening. I’ll keep you posted!