payloadcms/payload

Configuration transformation is the primary extension mechanism. Runtime factories bind database, storage, authentication, and email implementations to a Payload instance. Endpoint tables and CLI command definitions expose additional behavior without replacing the core operation pipeline. Admin components, lifecycle hooks, jobs, and rich-text features provide more targeted customization surfaces.

• Plugins are ordered config-to-config transformations: buildConfig sorts by plugin.order with zero as the default and awaits each result before sanitization.
  packages/payload/src/config/build.ts#L10-17docs/plugins/overview.mdx#L30-34
• Storage adapters belong in config.storage and must expose init; s3Storage returns a named adapter with collection membership and an init function that binds cloud-storage behavior.
  packages/payload/src/config/build.ts#L19-29packages/storage-s3/src/index.ts#L111-157
• createDatabaseAdapter supplies default batching, copy, migration, and null transaction implementations that adapter arguments can override; postgresAdapter also accepts schema lifecycle hooks and query operator handlers.
  packages/payload/src/database/createDatabaseAdapter.ts#L42-64packages/db-postgres/src/index.ts#L101-121
• Root, collection, and global endpoint arrays are dispatched by method plus path-to-regexp matching; route parameters receive the resolved collection/global slug, and endpoints:false disables that endpoint surface.
  packages/payload/src/utilities/handleEndpoints.ts#L188-217packages/payload/src/utilities/handleEndpoints.ts#L220-244
• Custom auth strategies are collected from auth-enabled collections before API-key/local JWT behavior; executeAuthStrategies invokes them in order, merges response headers, logs thrown errors, and returns on the first user.
  packages/payload/src/index.ts#L1049-1079packages/payload/src/auth/executeAuthStrategies.ts#L14-37
• config.cli.commands overrides built-ins and accepts disabled entries or dynamically imported command definitions; loading resolves paths relative to configDir and validates name/alias conflicts.
  packages/payload/src/config/defaults.ts#L80-87packages/payload/src/cli/program/loadCommands.ts#L18-51packages/payload/src/cli/program/loadCommands.ts#L66-103
• Admin customization types expose providers, navigation, sidebar tabs, user-menu settings, named/custom views, dashboard widgets, dependencies, and import-map generators.
  packages/payload/src/config/types.ts#L1111-1158packages/payload/src/config/types.ts#L1161-1193
• Collection hooks can transform create data before validation/change and results after read/change; jobs tasks/workflows enable internal queue collections, while Lexical exposes replaceable feature composition.
  packages/payload/src/collections/operations/create.ts#L296-325packages/payload/src/collections/operations/create.ts#L550-595packages/payload/src/config/sanitize.ts#L559-605docs/rich-text/overview.mdx#L53-65