Managing Content Fragment Models

Last update: March 4, 2025

CREATED FOR:

  • User
  • Developer

From the Content Fragment console you can manage your Content Fragment Models, then open the editor to define the structure.

Content Fragment Models in Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) as a Cloud Service define the structure for the content of your Content Fragments. These fragments can then be used as a foundation for your headless content, or for page authoring.

IMPORTANT
Various features of the Content Fragment Console are available through the Early Adopter Program.
To see the status, and how to apply if you are interested, check the Release Notes.
NOTE
This page covers the section of the console that (only) displays Content Fragment Models. For other panels see:
NOTE
Content Fragments are stored as Assets. Content Fragment Models are primarily managed from the Content Fragments console, but can also be managed from the Assets console and the option Content Fragment Models that is available from Tools - General.

How to work with Content Fragment Models

As a very quick overview, to work with Content Fragment Models you:

  1. Enable Content Fragment Model functionality for your instance
  2. Create your Content Fragment Model.
    • At this point you can also Enable the model (for use when creating Content Fragments).
  3. Define the structure of your model.
  4. Enable your Content Fragment Model, if not already done.
  5. Allow your Content Fragment Models on the required Assets folders by configuring Policies.

Basic Structure and Handling of Content Fragment Models in the Console

You can use the far left panel of the Content Fragments console to select Content Fragment Models as the resource type to view, browse and manage:

Content Fragments console - navigation

This will open the view for Content Fragment Models:

Content Fragments console - Managing Content Fragment Models

Here you can see that there are three main areas:

  • The top toolbar

    • Provides standard AEM functionality
    • Also shows your IMS organization
    • Provides various actions

  • The left panel

    • Shows all configurations listed as folders
    • Here you can hide, or reveal, the folder tree
    • You can select a specific folder of the tree
    • This can be resized to show nested folders (sub-configurations)
    • As well as Content Fragment Models, you can view Content Fragments or Assets; you can also compress, or expand, links to the panels

  • The main/right panel - from here you can:

    • See the list of all Content Fragment Models held under the selected folder:

      • Content Fragment Models from the selected folder, and all sub-folders will be shown:

        • The location is indicated by the breadcrumbs; these can also be used to change the location:

      • Information is shown about each model

      • Various fields of information about a Content Fragment Model provide links; depending on the field, these can:

        • Open the appropriate model in the editor
        • Show information about the configuration
        • Show information about the status of the model

      • Certain other fields of information about a Content Fragment Model can be used for Fast Filtering:

        • Select a value in the column and it is immediately applied as a filter
        • Fast filtering is supported for the Modified By, Published By and Status column.s

      • By using mouse-over on the column headers a drop-down action selector, and width sliders, will be shown. These allow you to:

        • Sort - select the appropriate action for either ascending or descending
          This will sort the entire table according to that column. Sorting is only available on appropriate columns.
        • Resize the column - using either the action, or width sliders

      • Select one, or more, models for further action

    • Open the Filter panel

    • A selection of keyboard shortcuts are available for use in this console

The Information provided about your Content Fragment Models

The main/right panel (table view) of the console provides a range of information about your Content Fragment Models. Some items also provide direct links to further actions and/or information:

  • Name

    • Provides a link to open the model in the editor.

  • Locked

    • When the model is locked, this is indicated with a padlock icon.

  • Configuration

    • Provides a link to open the configuration in the console.
      Hovering over the folder name will show the JCR path.

  • Status

  • Modified

    • Information only.

  • Modified By

  • Tags

    • Information only.
    • Shows all tags related to the model.
    • Can be used for Fast Filtering.

  • Published At

    • Information only.

  • Published By

Model Properties

When you select a specific model, the properties of that model are shown (as defined when creating the model). If the model is not Locked, then some items can be updated. You can also use the information icon (next to the model Title) to open and close this information panel.

Content Fragments console - Information for a selected Content Fragment Model

  • Configuration

  • Status

  • Title

  • Tags

  • Description

  • Preview URL pattern

    Content Fragment Models allow authors to Preview their content in an external frontend application. Once the Preview Service is configured, add the URL for the frontend application.

    The preview URL should follow this pattern:
        https://<preview_url>?param=${expression}

    Available expressions are:

    • ${contentFragment.path}
    • ${contentFragment.model.path}
    • ${contentFragment.model.name}
    • ${contentFragment.variation}
    • ${contentFragment.id}

Actions

Once you have selected a folder (in the left panel) there is a range of actions that you can use, either directly, or after selecting a specific model:

Actions (unselected)

Certain actions are available from the console - after selecting a folder, but without selecting a specific Content Fragment Model:

Actions for a Content Fragment Model in the Content Fragments Console

Selecting a specific model opens a toolbar focused on the actions available for that model. You can also select multiple models - the actions available will be adjusted accordingly.

  • Edit to define your Content Fragment Model.
  • Publish to either the Publish or Preview tiers.
  • Lock/Unlock to control whether a user is allowed to modify the Model.
  • Enable/Disable to control whether a user is allowed to create Content Fragments based on this model.

Selecting a single model also shows the model properties in the right panel.

Select columns shown in the console

As with other consoles you can configure the columns that are visible, and available for action:

Content Fragments console - column configuration

This will present a list of columns that you can hide or show:

Content Fragments console - column configuration

Filter Content Fragment Models

The Filter panel offers:

  • a selection of predicates;

    • including status fields, tags, users, among others
    • one, or more, predicates can be selected and combined to create the filter

Once selected, the Filtering by options are shown (at the top of the main panel). They can be deselected from there. For example:

Content Fragments console - Filtering Content Fragment Models

Fast Filtering

You can also select a predicate by clicking on a specific column value in the list. You can select one, or more, values to combine predicates.

For example, select Enabled in the Status column. Once selected, this will be shown as a filter predicate, and the list will be filtered accordingly.

NOTE
Fast filtering is only supported for the Status, Modified By, Tags, and Published By columns.
NOTE
Fast Filtering operates in the same way as for Content Fragments in the console.

Creating a Content Fragment Model

  1. Navigate to the folder appropriate to your configuration, or subconfiguration.

  2. Use Create to open the dialog.

    CAUTION
    The Create option will only be available:

  3. Select the Configuration and specify the Name.

    NOTE
    The configuration will be auto-filled with the current configuration (the folder you are currently in).
    You can also change the configuration, by clicking on the folder icon.

    You can also define various properties:

    • Title
      If you enter the Title first, the Name will be generated from that.
    • a Description
    • Enable model to enable the model
    NOTE

    Title and description

  4. Use Create to save the empty model, or Create and open.

Enabling a Content Fragment Model

Once a model has been created it must be enabled so that it:

  • Is available for selection when creating a Content Fragment.
  • Can be referenced from within a Content Fragment Model.
  • Is available to GraphQL; so the schema is generated.

You can Enable a model:

  • When creating a new model
    • An option is presented in the dialog.
  • When a model has been specifically Disabled
    • When the required Model is selected, the Enable action is available in the top toolbar.

Disabling a Content Fragment Model

A model can also be disabled so that:

  • The model is no longer available as a basis for creating new Content Fragments.

  • However:

    • The GraphQL schema keeps being generated and is still queryable (to avoid impacting JSON API).
    • Any Content Fragments based of the model can still be queried and returned from the GraphQL endpoint.

  • The model cannot be referenced anymore, but existing references are kept untouched, and can still be queried and returned from the GraphQL endpoint.

To disable a Model that is flagged as Enabled, you use the Disable option from:

  • The top toolbar, when the required Model is selected.

Allowing Content Fragment Models on your Assets Folder

To implement content governance, you can configure Policies on Assets folder to control which Content Fragment Models are allowed for Fragment creation in that folder.

NOTE
The mechanism is similar to allowing page templates for a page, and its children, in advanced properties of a page.

To configure the Policies for Allowed Content Fragment Models:

  1. Navigate and open Properties for the required Assets folder.

  2. Open the Policies tab, where you can configure:

    • Inherited from <folder>

      Policies are automatically inherited when creating new child folders; the policy can be reconfigured (and the inheritance broken) if subfolders need to allow models different to the parent folder.

    • Allowed Content Fragment Models by Path

      Multiple models can be allowed.

    • Allowed Content Fragment Models by Tag

      Multiple models can be allowed.

    Content Fragment Model Policy

  3. Save any changes.

The Content Fragment Models allowed for a folder are resolved as follows:

  • The Policies for Allowed Content Fragment Models.
  • If empty, then try to determine the policy using the inheritance rules.
  • If the inheritance chain does not deliver a result, then look at the Cloud Services configuration for that folder (also first directly and then via inheritance).
  • If none of the above deliver any results, then there are no allowed models for that folder.

Publishing a Content Fragment Model

Content Fragment Models need to be published when/before any dependent Content Fragments are published.

To publish a Content Fragment Model:

  1. Navigate to, and select your Content Fragment Model. You can select multiple models.

  2. Select Publish from the toolbar.

  3. In the Publish dialog select the Destination:

    • Publish service
    • Preview service

  4. The workflow to publish the selected models and their references will be started. The published status is then shown in the console.

Locked Content Fragment Models

This feature allows you to control whether a model can be updated, but it also provides governance for Content Fragment Models that have been published.

The Challenge

  • Content Fragment Models determine the schema for GraphQL queries in AEM.

    • AEM GraphQL schemas are created as soon as a Content Fragment Model is created, and they can exist on both author and publish environments.

    • Schemas on publish are the most critical as they provide the foundation for live delivery of Content Fragment content in JSON format.

  • Problems can occur when Content Fragment Models are modified, or in other words edited. This means that the schema changes, which in turn may affect existing GraphQL queries.

  • Adding new fields to a Content Fragment Model should (typically) not have any detrimental effects. However, modifying existing data fields (for example, their name) or deleting field definitions, will break existing GraphQL queries when they are requesting these fields.

The Requirements

  • To make users aware of the risks when editing models that are already used for live content delivery - in other words, models that have been published).

  • Also, to avoid unintended changes.

Either of these criteria might break queries if the modified models are republished.

The Solution

To address these issues, Content Fragment Models are locked into a READ-ONLY mode on author - as soon as they have been published. This status is indicated by Locked.

When the model is Locked (in READ-ONLY mode), you can see the contents and structure of models but you cannot edit them.

You can manage Locked models from either the console, or the model editor:

  • Console

    From the console, you can manage the READ-ONLY mode with the Unlock and Lock actions in the toolbar.

    • You can Unlock a model to enable edits.

      If you select Unlock a warning is shown, and you must confirm the Unlock action.

      You can then open the model for editing.

    • You can also Lock the model afterwards.

    • Republishing the model immediately returns it to Locked (READ-ONLY) mode.

  • Model Editor

    • When you open a model that is locked you will be warned, and presented with three actions: Cancel, View Read Only, Edit.

    • If you select View Read Only, you can see the content and structure of the model.

    • If you select Edit, you can edit and save your updates:

      Edit - locked Content Fragment Model

      NOTE
      There may still a warning at the top, but that is when the model is already in use by existing Content Fragments.

    • Cancel returns you to the console.

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