Introduction to framework-agnostic Sitecore development

You can build a Sitecore site without a Sitecore SDK.

Sitecore development means modeling content in Sitecore and building apps that retrieve and render it. For building apps using certain front-end frameworks, you could use dedicated Sitecore SDKs. However, you're not limited to those frameworks, and you don't need a dedicated SDK to build with Sitecore. You can use any front-end technology and call Sitecore's framework-agnostic APIs directly. In practice, this means:

1. Sitecore manages your content.
2. Your app retrieves that content via APIs.
3. Your front end renders the content using any framework or language you choose.

This documentation guides you through framework-agnostic development using Sitecore APIs. It explains the APIs and related tasks for building front-end apps for your Sitecore content.

Although building a custom SDK is not covered here, working through this documentation will give your development team the foundation to package these APIs into your own SDK that matches your framework's conventions.

The framework-agnostic documentation is part of a phased rollout. It currently covers:

• Project setup - create a SitecoreAI project, connect it to source control, and deploy it with an environment and a site. In this step, you also create a front-end application using your preferred framework.
• Content rendering - display SitecoreAI content in your front-end app using GraphQL APIs.

In future releases, the documentation will also cover the other main development areas after content rendering in order, from immediate next steps to advanced tasks:

• Visual editing - enable inline editing for content authors working in the SitecoreAI Page builder.
• Routing and localization - handle multisite setups, redirects, and locale resolution across your sites.
• Analytics and personalization - add site analytics, personalization, and A/B/n testing to your site.
• Advanced tooling - extend your app with AI-powered Sitecore features.