Kern - delegated Page ownership and moderated frontend editing

[maximus]

Hi everyone,

I’ve released Kern, a ProcessWire module for delegated Page ownership and moderated frontend editing.

The practical use case is a directory, marketplace or catalogue where a company owner, author, organization or other authenticated user should be able to maintain their own Page — without receiving normal ProcessWire admin access.

A typical Kern workflow looks like this:

1. An administrator defines which templates, users and fields are available.
2. A user requests ownership or redeems a one-time access code.
3. The user submits proposed changes through a project-specific frontend form.
4. Kern stores the changes as a revision without modifying the live Page.
5. A moderator reviews the current and proposed values.
6. After approval, Kern checks for conflicts, updates the Page and records the decision in its audit history.

Access rules can target:

• ProcessWire templates;
• individual fields;
• roles or specific users;
• all authenticated users;
• users with an active ownership claim.

Rules can independently grant or deny claim requests, editing, automatic approval, code management, moderation and history access. Explicit denies always take precedence.

Kern supports native ProcessWire fields, multilingual values, Page references, existing file and image references, Rapid, Combo, Table, Repeater and RepeaterMatrix values. Custom field workflows can be added through field adapters.

The module deliberately does not impose a public frontend. The site remains responsible for its routes, authentication screens, forms, uploads and presentation. Kern provides the authorization, revision, moderation, conflict-detection and audit layer behind those interfaces.

Some important safeguards:

• frontend submissions never write directly to live Pages;
• access-code plaintext is returned only once and is not stored;
• guests cannot request claims, redeem codes or submit revisions;
• system and security fields are always protected;
• force approval cannot bypass access that was revoked after submission;
• module data is preserved on uninstall unless deletion was explicitly enabled.

Requirements:

• ProcessWire 3.0.244+
• PHP 8.3+

GitHub:

• https://github.com/mxmsmnv/Kern

The repository includes API documentation, integration examples and guidance for AI agents building ProcessWire sites with Kern.

This is the first public release, so feedback on real-world ownership and moderated-editing workflows would be very welcome.

[maximus]

Here is a simple real-world example of where Kern can be useful.

Imagine you run a local business directory with hundreds or thousands of company profiles. Over time, phone numbers change, opening hours become outdated, companies move, and descriptions no longer reflect what the businesses actually do.

Normally, the site owner has two options: update everything manually or give business owners access to the ProcessWire admin. Neither option scales particularly well.

With Kern, a business owner can find their company profile and request access to it. Once the request is approved, they can suggest corrections through a simple form on the website.

They might change their opening hours, update the company description or correct a phone number. The public profile does not change immediately. Instead, the site editor receives a clear comparison between the current information and the proposed version.

The editor can approve or reject the changes. If someone else has edited the profile in the meantime, Kern detects the conflict instead of silently overwriting the newer content.

The business owner never needs access to the ProcessWire admin, cannot edit other companies, and only sees the fields they are allowed to change.

The same idea can be used for author profiles, job listings, products, organizations, event pages, property listings or any other content maintained partly by people outside the editorial team.

That is essentially the problem Kern is designed to solve: letting people maintain the content they are responsible for while the website owner keeps control over what is actually published.