Codex will refactor a repo from one instruction and hand you a diff to read. Point it at your Webflow CMS and it would do the same across 400 collection items, except the CMS is not a folder it can open, and the live site has no undo if it gets a rewrite wrong.
Scratch makes your collections that folder. Codex does 99% of the work, rewriting every item on your laptop and reporting back the way it reports a code change. The last 1%, what actually publishes, stays a button only you press. Nothing reaches the live site until you have read the diff and approved it.
How it works
- Scratch pulls your collections into files. Every CMS item, page, and asset lands in a folder on your laptop, one file each. The Designer layout never moves.
- Codex edits the items. Point Codex at the Scratch folder and tell it the change. It works the collection the way it works a codebase, and you read the result like a pull request. Rewrite every excerpt to one sentence and fix the title case. Codex touches the files, never the live site.
- You review every diff and publish. Scratch lays each change next to the original, word by word. Approve what ships, and Scratch sends only those items back through the Webflow CMS API.
What people use it for
The jobs that stall because the Webflow editor opens one item at a time:
- Collapse every blog excerpt to a single clean sentence and fix the title case.
- Backfill the SEO title and meta description on a collection that shipped without them.
- Carry a rename through a whole collection: body copy, headings, and SEO fields at once.
- Write alt text across an image-heavy gallery or case-study set.
- Localize a collection into a second language, where Webflow exposes locales.
Run it on a few items to feel the loop, then turn it loose on the collection.
Why not an MCP server?
A Webflow MCP server wires Codex straight to your live CMS, publish button and all. One confident pass ships across the whole collection, and Webflow hands you nothing to roll it back with.
Scratch gives Codex the same full read and write access, but against a local copy. The publish step is lifted out and handed to you. Codex can change anything; only you can ship it. On a live site with no undo, that gap is the whole point.
What Codex edits in Webflow
- CMS collection items: rich-text, plain-text, slug, and custom fields
- Page metadata: title, slug, SEO and Open Graph
- Asset alt text
- Multi-locale content, where Webflow exposes it
The Designer layout, components, bindings, and reference targets are never exposed for editing. Validators check length caps, slug uniqueness, and any field you mark off-limits, so a rewrite cannot overrun an SEO limit or quietly break a binding. Ecommerce collections are out of scope. The full list lives on Scratch for Webflow.
Questions people ask
Is this an MCP server or an OpenAI integration?
Neither. An MCP or an integration hands Codex the publish button. Scratch keeps it. Codex gets the same access, and publishing is a separate step you approve, one item at a time.
Will it touch my Designer layout?
No. Codex only sees content fields. Layout, components, bindings, and reference targets are never pulled into the folder, and validators stop a rewrite from breaking a slug or blowing a length cap.
Webflow has no undo. Am I stuck if a change is wrong?
No. Scratch keeps the original beside the rewrite, so every published item rolls back per row, even though Webflow itself cannot. You decide which version stays.
How is this different from a CSV round-trip or a script?
A CSV re-import and a hand-written script both write straight to the live CMS with no diff and no per-item approval, and a find-and-replace does only what you spelled out. Codex brings judgment to the items a rule misses, and Scratch still holds every change for review before it ships.
Can it sweep a whole collection from one prompt?
Yes. That is what Codex is built for. Run it on a few items first to settle the prompt, then point it at the whole collection.
Do I need to be technical?
Codex lives in the terminal, so if you run it already, you are set. If a terminal is not where you want to be, the Claude desktop app runs the same Scratch loop with a more familiar surface.
See it on your own collection
The fastest way to trust it is to watch it run on your content. See it run on your Webflow CMS →, or download Scratch free and take the first pass yourself.