The AEM Headless SDK
Different from the AEM SDK, the AEM Headless SDK is set of libraries that can be used by clients to quickly and easily interact with AEM Headless APIs over HTTP.
For more information see AEM Headless SDK.
Additional Development Tools
Besides the AEM SDK, you need additional tooling that facilitates developing and testing your code and content locally:
- Java™
- Git
- Apache Maven
- The Node.js library
- The IDE of your choice
Because AEM is a Java™ application, you need to install Java™ and the Java™ SDK to support the development of AEM as a Cloud Service.
Git is what you use to manage source control and to check in the changes to Cloud Manager and then deploy them to a production instance.
AEM uses Apache Maven to build projects generated from the AEM Maven Project archetype. All major IDEs provide integration support for Maven.
Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment used to work with the front-end assets of an AEM project’s ui.frontend sub-project. Node.js is distributed with npm, is the de facto Node.js Package Manager, used to manage JavaScript dependencies.
Components of an AEM System at a Glance
Next, let’s look at the constituent parts of an AEM environment.
A full AEM environment is made up of an Author, Publish, and Dispatcher. These same components are made available in the local development runtime so you can make it easier for you to preview your code and content before going live.
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The Author service is where internal users create, manage, and preview content.
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The Publish service is considered the “Live” environment and is typically what end users interact with. Content, after being edited and approved on the Author service, is distributed to the Publish service. The most common deployment pattern with AEM headless applications is to have the production version of the application connect to an AEM Publish service.
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The Dispatcher is a static web server augmented with the AEM Dispatcher module. It caches web pages produced by the publish instance to improve performance.
The Local Development Workflow
The local development project is built on Apache Maven and is using Git for source control. To update the project, developers can use their preferred integrated development environment, such as Eclipse, Visual Studio Code, or IntelliJ, among others.
To test code or content updates that are ingested by your headless application, you must deploy the updates to the local AEM runtime, which includes local instances of the AEM author and publish services.
Make sure to take note of the distinctions between each component in the local AEM runtime, as it is important to test your updates where they matter the most. For example, test content updates on author or test new code on the publish instance.
In a production system, a Dispatcher and an http Apache server will always sit in front of an AEM publish instance. They provide caching and security services for the AEM system, so it is paramount to test code and content updates against the Dispatcher as well.
Previewing Your Code and Content Locally with The Local Development Environment
To prepare your AEM headless project for launch, you need to make sure that all constituent parts of your project are functioning well.
To do that, you must put everything together: code, content, and configuration and test it in a local development environment for go live readiness.
The local development environment is comprised of three main areas:
- The AEM Project - this project contains all the custom code, configuration, and content the AEM developers are going to be working on
- The Local AEM Runtime - local versions of the AEM author and publish services that are used to deploy code from the AEM project
- The Local Dispatcher Runtime - a local version of the Apache htttpd webserver that includes the Dispatcher module
Once the local development environment is set up, you can simulate content serving to the React app by deploying a static Node server locally.
What’s Next
Now that you have completed this part of the AEM Headless Developer Journey, you should:
- Be familiar with the AEM Development Tools
- Understand the local development workflow
Continue your AEM headless journey by next reviewing the document How to Go Live with Your Headless Application where you actually take your AEM Headless project live!