Is It Out of Scope? — Web design
Is upgrading a CMS to a new major version out of scope for a web design project?
Yes. A CMS version upgrade is a technical and infrastructure task, not a design one.
Design work happens inside the CMS, so clients sometimes assume the team touching templates is also the right team to handle the platform's underlying version.
Is it out of scope?
Yes. A major-version upgrade touches the platform's core, plugins, and compatibility — infrastructure work with no overlap with visual or template design.
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Exclusions clause→ — CMS platform upgrades are technical infrastructure work excluded from a design engagement.
Example contract wording
Example contract wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
We work inside the CMS on templates and layout, but a major-version upgrade is a platform-level change with real compatibility risk — that's development work, outside what we scoped here.
How MarginFlow flags it
MarginFlow flags CMS-upgrade and platform-migration requests outside_scope on design contracts, since they're infrastructure changes rather than template or visual work.