Content Management System: Design a CMS with Versioned Articles, Tags, and Publishing Workflow

Question

## Round 1 - Coding

## Problem

Design a lightweight CMS class that manages articles through a publishing workflow:

- `create_article(title, body, author_id, tags)` -> `article_id`
- `edit_article(article_id, body)` — save as a new version; preserve all previous versions.
- `publish_article(article_id)` — transition from `DRAFT` to `PUBLISHED`.
- `get_article(article_id, version=None)` — return article at given version, or latest if None.
- `search_by_tag(tag)` — return all published articles with that tag.

```python
class CMS:
    def create_article(self, title: str, body: str, author_id: str, tags: list[str]) -> str: ...
    def edit_article(self, article_id: str, new_body: str) -> int:  # returns new version number
        ...
    def publish_article(self, article_id: str) -> None: ...
    def get_article(self, article_id: str, version: int | None = None) -> dict: ...
    def search_by_tag(self, tag: str) -> list[dict]: ...
```

```
id = cms.create_article("Intro", "v1 body", "u1", ["python"])
cms.edit_article(id, "v2 body")  -> version 2
cms.publish_article(id)
cms.get_article(id, version=1)["body"] -> "v1 body"
cms.search_by_tag("python")           -> [latest published article]
```

## Follow-ups

1. How do you store versions efficiently? (Full snapshots vs diff/delta)
2. What prevents a `PUBLISHED` article from being edited back to `DRAFT`? Where does that state machine live?
3. `search_by_tag` must also support multi-tag AND queries. How do you implement tag intersection?
4. How would you implement a scheduled publish (article goes live at a future timestamp)?

Content Management System: Design a CMS with Versioned Articles, Tags, and Publishing Workflow

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