# Fix list: ButterCMS

From Anchor Terminal's listing at https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/buttercms, the October 2026 research run, assessed 9 October 2026. Grade D, 53.3 out of 100.

This is everything the published grade says the listing lacks, the biggest possible gain to the total first. It comes from the reason given for each score, the checklist each category was scored against (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist), the provenance checks, the deductions, what we couldn't check and what the review panel asked for. A fix counts at the next check, once it's public.

For a coding agent working on ButterCMS: work through the items below in the product, its docs and its public pages. Each category gives the reason for its score, with the points each checklist item earned, and the checklist itself, so the gap is the items that earned less than their points. Change the product, not the wording, and keep a note of what you changed and where it's published.

## 1. Security & auth, 36 out of 100, up to 11.2 more on the total

Why it scored 36: One read token and one write token per account, with no scopes, and the docs say rotation is done by contacting support (15 of 30). We took 5 off, not the checklist's 10, because only the read token can travel in the query string. That token also returns drafts with `preview=1` (10). The read token is a read-only credential and writes default to draft. No approval step for API writes was found, and approval workflows are listed on Enterprise (10 of 20). The API returns stored content, and no guidance on treating it as untrusted input was found (3 of 15). Audit logs and access logs are listed as Enterprise functions, and versions record who saved them (6 of 15). A disclosure address at security@buttercms.com and penetration tests described on the security page. No security.txt, no bug bounty, and the certifications listed are those of the AWS and Heroku data centres (7 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-security):

- 0 to 30, the credential model. 30 for OAuth 2.1 with scopes, or scoped and revocable keys with rotation. 20 for plain revocable API keys. 10 for one all-powerful key. 10 off when a secret can travel in a URL query string as a documented option.
- 0 to 20, read-only or least-privilege modes, and confirmation or approval for destructive actions.
- 0 to 15, prompt-injection posture where the tool returns untrusted content (documented mitigations or guidance). A tool that returns no untrusted content gets 10.
- 0 to 15, audit logs or per-call visibility for the operator.
- 0 to 20, a security programme. security.txt or a disclosure policy, a bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001, advisories handled in public.

Models are read for retention, whether API data trains models (and whether that's off by default), zero-retention options and certifications. Frameworks for telemetry defaults, approval hooks, guardrails and sandboxing.

## 2. Payments & pricing, 20 out of 100, up to 10 more on the total

Why it scored 20: No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Four plans have public dollar prices, the Write API add-on's price is not published and Enterprise is through sales (10). The Free plan needs no card and covers the Read API. Writing needs a paid plan and the add-on, and we did not establish whether the 14-day trial includes it (10 of 20). A person signs up in a browser, and the write token needs a purchase or a request to support (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-payments):

The published rubric, also on the [x402 page](https://www.anchorterminal.com/x402/).

- 40, a machine payment protocol (x402, MPP or L402) on the tool's own endpoints. 10 to 30 when it covers only some endpoints or only goes through a third party, and the note says which.
- 20, per-call or per-unit pricing published without a login. 10 for public plan-only pricing, 0 for "contact sales" or prices behind a login.
- 20, a free tier or trial that doesn't need a card.
- 20, autonomous onboarding, meaning an agent can get access without a person signing up in a browser (keyless use, x402, a programmatic key API).

Payment platforms and agent wallets rarely charge for their own API over a machine protocol, so the first line has steps for them, and the highest one that applies counts. 40 when x402, MPP or L402 runs on all their own endpoints, 30 when it runs on part of their own API, 25 when their merchants can accept one, 20 for running a facilitator, 15 for paying as a buyer, and 0 when the only protocol is their own. Merchant acceptance sits above a facilitator because the platform's own customers can charge agents through it, while a facilitator settles for sellers who wire up the protocol themselves. The counter-argument (a facilitator does more for the protocol as a whole) has a point. Each note says which step applied.

Open-source software you run yourself is scored on its hosted or paid option if it has one. A free, self-hosted package with nothing to buy gets 20, 20 and 20 for the last three lines, and 0 to 40 for the first only if it ships a payment protocol.

## 3. Maintenance & community, 27 out of 100, up to 6.4 more on the total

Why it scored 27: No dated API changelog was found. The docs sitemap shows the Write API reference pages last modified on 9 September 2026, and the SDKs are older, with `buttercms` 3.0.3 tagged on 4 September 2025 and `buttercms-python` 2.1.1 on 7 May 2024. We scored the recency line 10 of 30 on the docs dates. A strict reading on releases gives 0. No three releases or dated changelog entries in 90 days (0). Support by chat and email, a knowledge base and public SDK repositories, with no public changelog (5 of 15). Ten official SDKs are listed, the two we read are over a year old, and the official MCP registry has no ButterCMS entry (7 of 15). The JavaScript SDK has test and release workflows and moved to trusted publishing in November 2025, with no commits in the last 90 days (5 of 10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-maintenance):

- 0 to 30, time since the last release, or the last published model or API change for a closed service. 30 within 30 days, 20 within 90, 10 within 180, 0 older.
- 20, at least three releases or dated changelog entries in the last 90 days.
- 0 to 25, responsiveness. Issues and pull requests answered on GitHub (the open issues and how recent the replies are). For closed services, a public changelog and a support or community channel that answers, 0 to 15.
- 15, presence in the official MCP registry under a verified namespace (MCP servers), or current official SDKs (APIs and models).
- 10, package health, current dependencies and CI.

Models are read for deprecation notice periods and model churn rather than release counts.

## 4. Agent ergonomics, 64 out of 100, up to 5.9 more on the total

Why it scored 64: Responses are sized with `page_size`, a `fields` selection, `exclude_body` on posts and `levels` for reference depth (20 of 25). Page and offset pagination with `meta.count`, filters on field values and `order` (20). Errors are documented with causes, but bodies come in three shapes (`detail`, a field map, `error`) with no stable codes, and a write answers 202 with `status: pending` and no identifier, so the result has to be read back (11 of 20). No idempotency keys. Page and post slugs are unique, which limits duplicates, and collection items have no such guard (4 of 20). Writes default to draft, but page creation needs every field key of the page type. Ten SDKs are listed and the docs say to call REST for writes (9 of 15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-ergonomics):

- 0 to 25, context cost. For MCP, the number and size of the tool definitions (25 for ten or fewer compact tools, 15 for 11 to 30, 5 for more than 30, plus up to 10 back for toolsets, dynamic loading or read-only subsets). For APIs, whether responses can be sized (field selection, limits, summaries).
- 20, pagination, filtering and output-size controls.
- 20, actionable, documented error responses, codes and messages an agent can recover from.
- 20, idempotency or safe retries, and for MCP the `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint` annotations.
- 15, sensible defaults, few required parameters, and official SDKs in at least two languages.

Models are read for tool use, structured output, prompt caching, context length, batch and SDKs. Frameworks for how much code and how many defaults a tool-calling agent with MCP needs.

## 5. Transparency & trust, 51 out of 100, up to 4.3 more on the total

Made of editorial 26, provenance 76.

Why it scored 51: Closed service, MIT SDKs. The only published contract is an undated website Terms of Service that names no legal entity and has passages about collaborating on legal documents that do not describe a CMS (8 of 30). The privacy policy, last modified 15 August 2022, covers the website and says nothing about content stored in the CMS. The security page says data is kept as long as the customer needs it, the docs give 30 or more days for backups, and a DPA is on request for Enterprise customers (10 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated notice was found. PUT on pages is kept for backwards compatibility (2 of 20). Heroku, AWS, Fastly, Stripe and TinyMCE are named across the security page and docs. No sub-processor list or hosting region is published (6 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-transparency):

- 0 to 30, source availability and licence clarity. 30 for open source under an OSI licence, 15 for closed with clear terms, 0 for unclear terms.
- 0 to 30, data handling and retention statements that agree with each other (privacy policy, DPA, retention periods, subprocessors).
- 0 to 20, a deprecation policy or notices with dates.
- 0 to 20, telemetry disclosed with an opt-out (local software), or subprocessors and data locations disclosed (hosted).

The other half of Transparency and trust is the provenance score, computed from checked facts (below). The category score is the mean of the two.

Provenance checks not met in full (half of this category, computed from checked facts):

- Terms of service: read, states 4 of the 7 things a reader expects (7.4 of 10)
- Privacy policy: read, states 6 of the 8 things a reader expects (8.5 of 10)
- Changelog: not found (0 of 10)
- security.txt: not found (0 of 10)

## 6. Schema & documentation, 78 out of 100, up to 3.6 more on the total

Why it scored 78: Public OpenAPI 3.1 files for the whole API, the Read API, the Write API and webhooks, linked from the docs index. The combined file has 25 operations (25). A docs llms.txt and a Markdown copy of every docs page (10). All 25 operations have a description, and the write descriptions state field rules, defaults and what the API cannot do. The docs say when to use an SDK and when to call REST (16 of 20). Request bodies have required fields and 40 enums in the combined file, but the `fields` object depends on each account's page types and no endpoint returns those types (9 of 15). 328 examples in the combined file and a page of status codes with causes and sample bodies (13 of 15). The version is in the `/v2` path. No API changelog was found (5 of 15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-schema):

APIs and MCP servers.

- 25, a machine-readable contract (a public OpenAPI file or similar; for MCP, typed JSON Schema inputs on every tool).
- 10, llms.txt or Markdown docs served for agents.
- 0 to 20, descriptions that say what a tool is for, when to use it and when not to, read from the tool definitions in the source or the API reference.
- 0 to 15, typed inputs with enums, constraints and required fields, and no free-form JSON blobs.
- 0 to 15, examples and documented error responses.
- 15, versioning and a public changelog.

Models are read from the API reference, the OpenAPI file, llms.txt, the structured-output and tool-use docs and the model cards. Frameworks from docs a model can follow, typed interfaces, examples and the API reference.

## 7. Reliability, 83 out of 100, up to 3.4 more on the total

Why it scored 83: Graded on the hosted Read and Write APIs. Public status page on Atlassian Statuspage with CDN, API and Login Page components and a history feed (20). The feed's newest incidents are two on 20 October 2025, so the 90 days to 9 October 2026 are clean (30). Limits are published as monthly quotas by plan, from 50,000 calls on Free to 1M on Professional, with 2,000 or 5,000 write calls on the add-on. No per-second limit is published (10 of 15). Free and trial accounts get a 429 that the docs say may carry `Retry-After`, and the docs show backoff for 5xx errors. There are no idempotency keys, and the advice for writes is to check that content exists before retrying a create (8 of 15). The pricing page lists an SLA on Enterprise with no figure (5). The v2 API is generally available (10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-reliability):

Hosted APIs, MCP servers, models and platforms.

- 20, a public status page with component history (Statuspage, Instatus, BetterStack or the vendor's own).
- 0 to 30, the incident record for the last 90 days on that page. 30 for a clean record or trivial incidents only, 20 for minor incidents only, 10 for one major outage (an hour or more of a core API down, or errors across the board), 0 for several. 5 when there's no history we could read, and the note says so.
- 15, rate limits documented with numbers.
- 15, documented 429 or overload handling (Retry-After, backoff guidance), and idempotency keys or safe-retry guidance where writes are involved.
- 10, an SLA published for any paid tier.
- 10, the surface agents use is generally available, not beta or preview.

Local packages, SDKs, frameworks and stdio MCP servers.

- 20, installs from an official package with supported runtimes stated.
- 25, a public CI and test suite, passing on the default branch.
- 0 to 25, open crash or regression issues relative to activity (25 for few and handled, 0 for many, old and unanswered).
- 15, semver discipline and breaking changes called out in a changelog.
- 15, version 1.0 or later, or declared stable.

Protocols are read from their reference implementations, the public facilitators or servers, spec stability and test vectors.

## Deductions

Each comes off the total. A fixed and documented problem counts for less at the next check.

- 9 October 2026. The docs page on AI tools shows `butter.page.update(...)` as the way to write through the JavaScript SDK. The published SDK 3.0.3 has list, retrieve and search methods only, and the SDK overview says to call REST for writes (https://buttercms.com/docs/build-your-app/third-party-integrations/ai-tools-integration.md, https://github.com/ButterCMS/buttercms-js). 2 points.

## What we couldn't check

What we couldn't read counted as absent. Publishing it on a page a plain HTTP fetch can read (not only in a browser) lets the next check count it.

- Not established what the Write API add-on costs. The pricing page lists it without a price and the docs send buyers to the billing screen or support
- Not established whether the 14-day trial or the Free plan can get a write token. The pricing page lists the add-on only from Advanced upwards
- Not established whether ButterCMS holds a SOC 2 report of its own. The docs table marks SOC 2 Type 2 as compliant and says Enterprise customers can request reports, and the same page attributes the certifications to AWS data centres
- Not established how a failed background write is reported after a 202 answer
- Not established which legal entity contracts with customers today. The privacy policy names ButterCMS LLC and a status post says Tiugo Technologies acquired ButterCMS in 2024
- unchecked: GitHub star counts, open issues and whether CI passes on the SDK repositories
- unchecked: the eight SDKs other than JavaScript and Python, and PyPI download figures
- unchecked: the 401 and 429 response bodies and headers. We sent no request to api.buttercms.com beyond robots.txt
- unchecked: the signup flow at app.buttercms.com, so no card on the Free plan rests on the pricing page
- The terms and privacy links point at website documents because the vendor publishes no service agreement or product privacy notice. The Write API's OpenAPI file names the terms page as its licence
- The lead was right that the API reads and writes. It did not say that the Write API is a paid add-on from the Advanced plan with a monthly cap

## Weaknesses

- The Write API is a paid add-on on Advanced ($249 a month) and Professional ($399), capped at 2,000 and 5,000 write calls a month. Its price is not published
- Create and update calls answer 202 with `{"status": "pending"}` and no identifier, and there are no idempotency keys
- One read token and one write token per account, with no scopes. The docs say rotation is done by contacting support
- Page types and collections cannot be created through the API, pages cannot be deleted through it, and it has no version or rollback operation
- The terms are an undated website Terms of Service, the privacy policy dates from 15 August 2022 and covers the website, and a DPA is on request for Enterprise only
- No API changelog or deprecation policy was found. The JavaScript SDK's last release was 3.0.3 on 4 September 2025 and it has no write methods

## What costs an agent a turn today

The notes we give agents before they call it. Each one is a workaround an agent shouldn't need.

- End every path with a slash. A missing slash returns a 301, and the vendor counts the redirect and the retry as two API calls
- Send the write token only as `Authorization: Token <token>`. The `auth_token` query parameter works for reads only
- On page creation send every field key of the page type, with empty strings for fields left blank
- A 202 means queued, not saved. Read the entry back with `preview=1` to confirm, and check a slug exists before retrying a create
- Call the REST API directly for writes. The JavaScript SDK 3.0.3 has list, retrieve and search methods only

## When it's done

Send what changed and where it's published as a dispute (https://www.anchorterminal.com/builders/#disputes, or `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/contact` with `"kind": "dispute"`). Disputes are answered in public, and the listing is checked again by the same checklist. Paying for an audit or a listing claim changes nothing here.