diff --git a/lib/create-tree.js b/lib/create-tree.js
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..eb2053c2803a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/create-tree.js
@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
+const fs = require('fs')
+const path = require('path')
+const Page = require('./page')
+const { sortBy } = require('lodash')
+
+let basePath
+
+module.exports = async function createTree (originalPath, langObj) {
+  // Do not reset this value on recursive runs
+  if (!basePath) basePath = originalPath
+
+  // On recursive runs, this is processing page.children items in `/<link>` format.
+  // If the path exists as is, assume this is a directory with a child index.md.
+  // Otherwise, assume it's a child .md file and add `.md` to the path.
+  let filepath
+  try {
+    await fs.promises.access(originalPath)
+    filepath = `${originalPath}/index.md`
+  } catch {
+    filepath = `${originalPath}.md`
+  }
+
+  const relativePath = filepath.replace(`${basePath}/`, '')
+  const localizedBasePath = path.join(__dirname, '..', langObj.dir, 'content')
+
+  // Initialize the Page! This is where the magic happens (sorry).
+  const page = await Page.init({
+    basePath: localizedBasePath,
+    relativePath,
+    languageCode: langObj.code
+  })
+
+  if (!page) {
+    // Do not throw an error if early access is not available
+    if (relativePath.startsWith('early-access')) return
+
+    throw Error(`Cannot initialize page for ${filepath}`)
+  }
+
+  // Create the root tree object on the first run, and create children recursively
+  const item = {
+    relativePath,
+    title: page.shortTitle || page.title,
+    // parentPath: parentPath || null,
+    page
+  }
+
+  // Process frontmatter children recursively
+  if (item.page.children) {
+    item.childPages = sortBy(
+      (await Promise.all(item.page.children
+        .map(async (child) => await createTree(path.join(originalPath, child), langObj))))
+        .filter(Boolean),
+      // Sort by the ordered array of children in the frontmatter
+      item.page.children
+    )
+  }
+
+  return item
+}
diff --git a/lib/frontmatter.js b/lib/frontmatter.js
index c875db25152b..918fa26d7400 100644
--- a/lib/frontmatter.js
+++ b/lib/frontmatter.js
@@ -36,6 +36,9 @@ const schema = {
       minimum: 2,
       maximum: 4
     },
+    children: {
+      type: 'array'
+    },
     mapTopic: {
       type: 'boolean'
     },
diff --git a/lib/get-document-type.js b/lib/get-document-type.js
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..8c3fab956ed1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/get-document-type.js
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+module.exports = function getDocumentType (relativePath) {
+  if (!relativePath.endsWith('index.md')) {
+    return 'article'
+  }
+
+  // Derive the document type from the path segment length
+  switch (relativePath.split('/').length) {
+    case 1:
+      return 'homepage'
+    case 2:
+      return 'product'
+    case 3:
+      return 'category'
+    case 4:
+      return 'mapTopic'
+  }
+}
diff --git a/lib/page.js b/lib/page.js
index f9e2a43a17e3..7c7edd0af460 100644
--- a/lib/page.js
+++ b/lib/page.js
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@ const statsd = require('./statsd')
 const readFileContents = require('./read-file-contents')
 const getLinkData = require('./get-link-data')
 const union = require('lodash/union')
+// const getDocumentType = require('./get-document-type')
 
 class Page {
   static async init (opts) {
@@ -69,8 +70,14 @@ class Page {
     this.rawLearningTracks = this.learningTracks
     this.rawIncludeGuides = this.includeGuides
 
+    // Is this a Product, Category, Topic, or Article?
+    // this.documentType = getDocumentType(this.relativePath)
+
+    // Get array of versions that the page is available in for fast lookup
+    this.applicableVersions = getApplicableVersions(this.versions, this.fullPath)
+
     // a page should only be available in versions that its parent product is available in
-    const versionsParentProductIsNotAvailableIn = getApplicableVersions(this.versions, this.fullPath)
+    const versionsParentProductIsNotAvailableIn = this.applicableVersions
       // only the homepage will not have this.parentProduct
       .filter(availableVersion => this.parentProduct && !this.parentProduct.versions.includes(availableVersion))
 
diff --git a/lib/pages.js b/lib/pages.js
index c037c2213cbb..c4dd05bf5a24 100644
--- a/lib/pages.js
+++ b/lib/pages.js
@@ -1,7 +1,82 @@
 const path = require('path')
+const languages = require('./languages')
+const versions = Object.keys(require('./all-versions'))
+const createTree = require('./create-tree')
+const nonEnterpriseDefaultVersion = require('./non-enterprise-default-version')
+const englishPath = path.join(__dirname, '..', 'content')
 const walk = require('walk-sync').entries
 const Page = require('./page')
-const languages = require('./languages')
+
+// This function creates a nested object that can be accessed like this:
+// siteTree[languageCode][version].childPages[<array of pages>].childPages[<array of pages>] (etc...)
+async function loadTree () {
+  // We only need to initialize pages once per language (since pages don't change per version), so we do that
+  // first since it's the most expensive work. This gets us a nested object with pages attached that we can use
+  // as the basis for the siteTree after we do some versioning.
+  const rawTree = {}
+  await Promise.all(Object.values(languages)
+    .map(async (langObj) => {
+      rawTree[langObj.code] = await createTree(englishPath, langObj)
+    }))
+
+  // Now that we have the paged tree, we can walk it for every version and do two operations:
+  // 1. Add a versioned href to every node (we can get this easily from the permalinks array).
+  // 2. Recurisvely drop any child pages that are not available in the current version.
+  // Note that order of languages and versions doesn't matter, but order of child page arrays DOES matter (for nav).
+  const siteTree = {}
+  await Promise.all(Object.keys(languages).map(async (langCode) => {
+    const treePerVersion = {}
+
+    await Promise.all(versions.map(async (version) => {
+      // Yes, we are mutating the rawTree object here.
+      versionPages(rawTree[langCode])
+
+      // This step can't be asynchronous because the order of child pages matters.
+      function versionPages (item) {
+        // Add a versioned href as a convenience for use in layouts.
+        item.href = item.page.permalinks
+          .find(pl => pl.pageVersion === version || (pl.pageVersion === 'homepage' && version === nonEnterpriseDefaultVersion))
+
+        if (!item.childPages) return item
+
+        // Drop child pages that do not apply to the current version
+        item.childPages = item.childPages.filter(childPage => childPage.page.applicableVersions.includes(version))
+        item.childPages.forEach(childPage => versionPages(childPage))
+      }
+
+      treePerVersion[version] = rawTree[langCode]
+    }))
+
+    siteTree[langCode] = treePerVersion
+  }))
+
+  console.log(siteTree.en[nonEnterpriseDefaultVersion])
+
+  return siteTree
+}
+
+async function loadPageListFromTree (tree) {
+  const siteTree = tree || await loadTree()
+
+  // Traverse the tree of pages and create a simple array of pages.
+  // (We don't care about the language code or version here, so we can start two levels in.)
+  const collection = Object.values(siteTree).map(v => Object.values(v)).flat()
+  const result = []
+  collectPages(collection, result)
+
+  function collectPages (arr, result) {
+    arr.forEach(item => {
+      if (item.page) {
+        result.push(item.page)
+      }
+      if (item.childPages) {
+        collectPages(item.childPages, result)
+      }
+    })
+  }
+
+  return result
+}
 
 async function loadPageList () {
   // load english pages
@@ -66,6 +141,8 @@ async function loadPageMap (pageList) {
 }
 
 module.exports = {
+  loadTree,
+  // loadPages: loadPageListFromTree,
   loadPages: loadPageList,
   loadPageMap
 }