Last week, I joined the TYPO3 Developer Days 2026 in Karlsruhe - three packed days of TYPO3, open source, new ideas and many great conversations.

The program ranged from TYPO3 v14, extension development, testing and security to developer workflows, content editing and, of course, AI. Artificial intelligence was a particularly visible topic throughout the conference - from AI-assisted development to making content available to AI systems.

One of my personal highlights was Real WYSIWYG Editing – Visual Editor for TYPO3 by Matthias Vogel. The extension brings genuine visual editing to TYPO3 and is already integrated into my blog extension (EXT:t3extblog). For that, it was needed to make a small contribution. which is already merged and released!

Same Content, Different CMS — Who Does It Better? by Susanne Moog was another standout session. Comparing the same editorial task across different CMS platforms was a valuable reminder to look beyond our own ecosystem and learn from other approaches.

I also enjoyed Refactor Like a Pro by Silas Joisten from SensioLabs. While it did not introduce many completely new ideas for me, it was a solid, practical and fun talk about maintainable code, code quality and safe refactoring.

In Phirewall: Protection at the Application Layer, Sascha Egerer presented an open-source PHP firewall designed to protect applications directly at the application layer. It looks especially useful for specific use cases or shared-hosting environments. I definitely plan to test it and maybe integrate in my extensions as well.

From Rags to Riches: How to Get Content From TYPO3 Into Your AI by Martin Helmich was another must-see talk. It offered a practical introduction to Retrieval-Augmented Generation: instead of investing enormous resources into training a custom AI model, existing models can be supplied with relevant, up-to-date content from your own data sources.

A little off-topic, but no less inspiring, closing session was Why You Should Do It Anyway! by André Michelle. He shared the story behind OpenDAW, a browser-based music studio he has been building for many years. Seeing what is possible in web applications was fascinating and the talk was a very motivating reminder to keep pursuing ambitious ideas!

Other sessions gave me useful ideas around data seeding in TYPO3 for development and end-to-end testing, GIT worktree and refactoring tools  to ease up upgrades or DDEV for quicker PR testing. The two Campfire discussions I attended, on TYPO3 Headless and translation handling, were a great addition to the conference. The informal format made it easy to share experiences and hear different perspectives from the community. 

Of course, T3DD is not only about talks and code. Meeting up with familiar faces, getting to know new people and the Social Night all contributed to the relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. Thanks to everyone involved for another inspiring TYPO3 Developer Days. 

I’m returning home with new ideas, useful contacts and a long list of things to try. See ya next year!?