Introduction to App Builder

Historically, Adobe Commerce development has used in-process extensibility. The in-process model requires any new code to be compatible with upgrades, the server’s PHP version, and many other essential server applications and services that Commerce uses. Adobe Developer App Builder uses out-of-process extensibility to avoid these compatibility issues.

App Builder for Adobe Commerce

Adobe Developer App Builder is a serverless extensibility platform for integrating and creating custom experiences to extend Adobe solutions, and it’s now available for Adobe Commerce. With App Builder, you can build secure and scalable apps that extend Commerce-native functionality and integrate with third-party solutions. As a developer, you can now take advantage of out-of-process extensibility with Adobe Commerce and that in turn provides immediate and long-term benefits.

App Builder provides a unified third-party extensibility framework for integrating and creating custom applications that extend Adobe Commerce. Since this extensibility framework is built on Adobe’s infrastructure, developers can build custom microservices, and extend and integrate Adobe Commerce across other Adobe solutions and third-party integrations.

App Builder provides a way for customers to extend Adobe Commerce in various use cases:

• middleware extensibility - Connect external systems with Adobe applications by building custom connectors or take advantage of a suite of pre-built integrations.
• core services extensibility - Extend core application capabilities by extending the default behavior with custom features and business logic.
• user experience extensibility - Extend core experience to support business requirements or build customer-specific digital properties, storefronts, and back-office applications.

Adobe Developer App Builder is a cloud-based solution, which means that it automatically scales. This service is also globally distributed to allow the best performance regardless of your geographic location.

Why should you learn more about App Builder

Since Adobe Commerce is not a fully SAAS product, the code you develop can add complexity and upgrade issues. By using out-of-process extensibility, such as App Builder, you can provide custom, unique functionality to your Adobe Commerce store without requiring in-process methods.

Other benefits include:

• Decoupled features allow for faster time to launch.
• Upgrades are now easier. The custom features are outside the Commerce codebase, which prevents compatibility issues when upgrading.
• Moving features and logic outside of Commerce frees up resources that are normally used by in-process development methods.

Architecture

Instead of an out-of-the-box solution, Adobe Developer App Builder provides a common, consistent, and standardized development platform for extending Adobe Cloud solutions such as Adobe Commerce including:

• Adobe Developer Console used for custom microservice and extension development. Build and manage projects while accessing all the tools and APIs needed to create plugins and integrations.
• Open-source tools, SDKs, and libraries to build custom extensions and integrations. Use React Spectrum (Adobe’s UI toolkit) to have one common UI for all Adobe apps.
• services such as I/O Runtime for hosting infrastructure on Adobe’s serverless platform and I/O Events for event-based integrations. Adobe also provides out-of-the-box support for storing data and files.
• Adobe Experience Cloud where you submit extensions and integrations to publish in your Experience Cloud Org. System admins can review, manage, and approve these extensions. Once published, your custom App Builder extensions and tools are available alongside other Adobe Experience Cloud apps.

The following diagram illustrates how a standard application built on App Builder uses these functionalities:

For more details about the App Builder architecture, see the Architecture Overview.

Amazon Sales Channel extension

The following tutorials demonstrate how to connect Adobe Commerce to Amazon Sales Channel using an App Builder extension.

• technical overview App Builder
• extensibility framework
• functional demonstration App Builder

Get Started with App Builder

A n overview of composable commerce strategy, that includes the initial set-up can be found by reading the following blog post:

How App Builder helps drive business agility for your commerce platform

To help you get started with App Builder, Adobe has created the following documentation:

• App Builder Getting Started

Continue learning with Documentation

App Builder provides videos and documentation for developers, including guides and reference documentation to help develop your own custom applications:

• App Builder documentation
• App Builder videos

Try Out One of the Sample Applications

Ready to start developing? The following link contains sample applications to help get you started:

• App Builder Code Labs on Adobe Developer Website

Support

For developer support requests, use the Experience League forum for assistance.

Additional related tutorials

• Introduction to App Builder
• Extensibility Framework for App Builder
• Functional demonstration for App Builder
• Technical overview for App Builder
• Submit app to the Marketplace
• Complete the extension information overview
• Amazon Sales Channel on App Builder
• Admin UI SDK