Payload released version 1.6.0 of their developer-focused open source headless content management system. In addition to optimizing the TypeScript interface of the Local API, the entire API has gotten a significant overhaul. We’ve reduced down a barebones Payload class in order to make it as small as possible for deploying in a serverless context. Now, the Local API no longer includes any imports to anything HTTP-related (Express, GraphQL, etc.) and only exposes methods to interact with your database, meaning that it can be deployed in as small of a serverless function bundle size as currently possible.

If you’ve been around for the last few months, you’ve likely taken note of our recent efforts to move from babel to swc for config transpilation. We have been investing time in improving Payload startup time by leveraging the most modern transpilation tactics available, and this release takes our efforts a step further by reducing some transpilation duplication that was present within Payload. Now, Payload no longer transpiles your config for you within the framework itself. Instead, we just rely on your own TypeScript transpilation to handle things like JSX and modern syntax in your project.

https://payloadcms.com