# Big Picture Architecture

### About this export

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| **content_type** | lesson |
| **platform** | contentstack-academy |
| **source_url** | https://www.contentstack.com/academy/courses/contentstack-for-developers/big-picture-architecture |
| **course_slug** | contentstack-for-developers |
| **lesson_slug** | big-picture-architecture |
| **markdown_file_url** | /academy/md/courses/contentstack-for-developers/big-picture-architecture.md |
| **generated_at** | 2026-05-04T05:36:51.106Z |

> Part of **[Contentstack for Developers](https://www.contentstack.com/academy/courses/contentstack-for-developers)** on Contentstack Academy. **Academy MD v3** — structured for retrieval; no quiz or assessment keys.

<!-- ai_metadata: {"lesson_id":"03","type":"text","duration_minutes":1,"topics":["Big","Picture","Architecture"]} -->

#### Lesson text

# **Architecture**

## **Big Picture Architecture Diagram**

### **Backend**

The Backend of Contentstack is the CMS with the ability to create and publish content.  **The focus here is on editor ease-of-use by providing a simple, powerful and flexible UI for content creation and management.**  In addition to the out of the box functionality, we also provide an ability to extend the interface by creating UI Extensions using our App SDK and connect to 3rd-party applications such as DAM providers, Analytics, E-Commerce platforms and more.

### **Frontend**

The focus on the frontend is high-performance for your website and web application. APIs and SDKs are provided to the developer for using in their applications to perform read-only queries to the content.  The Content Delivery APIs use an internal CDN to cache all queries to the platform which results in higher performance for all your web applications.  This is also where we find the Images API for delivering image assets.

![Architecture.png](https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltebc53cfaf0dd6403/blt40df19fbdfa691c4/664c7d55a671fa7891f218bf/Architecture.png)

## **Environments**

*   One Stack can publish to multiple Environments.  Think of Environments as “publish destinations”.
    
*   Each Environment has one Delivery Token, otherwise known as an Access Token.  That token is unique per Environment.
    
*   Each Stack has an API key.  There is only 1 API key per Stack and it is unique.
    
*   Most API calls will require both an API token and a Delivery / Access Token.
    

![environment.png](https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltebc53cfaf0dd6403/blta9f0e57d8a3c5a6e/664c7d9f79abee8ebd3d1534/environment.png)**Multi-Stack Architecture Diagram**

![multi-stack.png](https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltebc53cfaf0dd6403/bltd1dd48a1fcbec491/664c7de28a66292552b1397b/multi-stack.png)

#### Key takeaways

- Connect **Big Picture Architecture** back to your stack configuration before moving to the next module.
- Capture one concrete artifact (screenshot, Postman call, or code snippet) that proves the step works in your environment.
- Re-read the delivery versus management boundary for anything you changed in the entry model.

## Supplement for indexing

### Content summary

Big Picture Architecture. Architecture Big Picture Architecture Diagram Backend The Backend of Contentstack is the CMS with the ability to create and publish content. The focus here is on editor ease-of-use by providing a simple, powerful and flexible UI for content creation and management. In addition to the out of the box functionality, we also provide an ability to extend the interface by creating UI Extensions using our App SDK and connect to 3rd-party applications such as DAM providers, Analytics, E-Commerce platforms and more. Frontend The focus on the frontend is high-performance for your website and web application. APIs and SDKs are provided to the developer for using in their applications to perform read-on

### Retrieval tags

- Big
- Picture
- Architecture
- contentstack-for-developers
- lesson 03
- Big Picture Architecture
- contentstack-for-developers lesson

### Indexing notes

Index this lesson as a primary chunk tagged with lesson_id "03" and topics: [Big, Picture, Architecture].
Parent course slug: contentstack-for-developers. Use asset_references URLs as thumbnail hints in search results when present.
Never surface LMS quiz content or assessment answers from this file.

### Asset references

| Label | URL |
| --- | --- |
| Architecture.png | `https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltebc53cfaf0dd6403/blt40df19fbdfa691c4/664c7d55a671fa7891f218bf/Architecture.png` |
| environment.png | `https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltebc53cfaf0dd6403/blta9f0e57d8a3c5a6e/664c7d9f79abee8ebd3d1534/environment.png` |
| multi-stack.png | `https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltebc53cfaf0dd6403/bltd1dd48a1fcbec491/664c7de28a66292552b1397b/multi-stack.png` |

### External links

| Label | URL |
| --- | --- |
| Contentstack Academy home | `https://www.contentstack.com/academy/` |
| Training instance setup | `https://www.contentstack.com/academy/training-instance` |
| Academy playground (GitHub) | `https://github.com/contentstack/contentstack-academy-playground` |
| Contentstack documentation | `https://www.contentstack.com/docs/` |
| Architecture.png | `https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltebc53cfaf0dd6403/blt40df19fbdfa691c4/664c7d55a671fa7891f218bf/Architecture.png` |
| environment.png | `https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltebc53cfaf0dd6403/blta9f0e57d8a3c5a6e/664c7d9f79abee8ebd3d1534/environment.png` |
| multi-stack.png | `https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltebc53cfaf0dd6403/bltd1dd48a1fcbec491/664c7de28a66292552b1397b/multi-stack.png` |