Cloud SDK terminology

This topic explains general concepts and terms used within the Cloud SDK.

browser ID

The browser ID is a universally unique identifier (UUID) that Sitecore CDP assigns to every site visitor of your site. It is unique per browser, and it associates sessions and events with the respective site visitor. The Cloud SDK stores the browser ID as a first-party cookie in the web browser.

personalization

A personalization is any personalized content, such as a webpage component or an entire webpage, that marketers or developers create in XM Cloud or Sitecore Personalize. Personalizations run (display to the site visitor) depending on their type:

• XM Cloud personalizations run in JSS Next.js apps automatically.

• Sitecore Personalize live interactive experiences and interactive experiments run if Cloud SDK developers run them using the personalize function available in all modules of the personalize package.

guest ID

The guest ID, called guest reference in Sitecore CDP, is a universally unique identifier (UUID) that Sitecore CDP assigns to every site visitor of your site. It is unique per site visitor. The Cloud SDK stores the guest ID as a first-party cookie in the web browser.

friendly ID

The friendly ID is a unique identifier that Sitecore Personalize assigns to every experience and experiment. Cloud SDK developers use the friendly ID to run a specific interactive experience or interactive experiment.

event

An event is an action a site visitor performs in your app. For example, the action of viewing a webpage, clicking a button, submitting an XM Cloud form, or any other interaction you want to track.

When an event triggers, the event with all its data is sent to Sitecore. This data drives real-time tracking and analytics.

guest

A guest is a site visitor, also known as a user of your website. Site visitors are called guests in Sitecore CDP. That's why Cloud SDK developers encounter the term guest when they use the events package powered by Sitecore CDP, and when they log in to Sitecore CDP to find captured events.

package

A package is a JavaScript library. The Cloud SDK consists of packages, each representing a set of Sitecore digital experience platform capabilities. Packages are independent of each other: developers can install any Cloud SDK package in any order.

Cloud SDK packages consist of browser and server modules.

module

A module is a set of JavaScript functions, classes, interfaces, and other code. Cloud SDK packages consist of browser and server modules. Each module contains all the functions required to implement specific Cloud SDK DXP capabilities. The browser module is for the browser side, and the server module is for the server side.

Developers must first initialize a module by running the init function before they can run other functions in the module.

Sitecore digital experience platform (Sitecore DXP)

Sitecore DXP is a suite of SaaS-enabled Sitecore products, each offering rich digital experience capabilities such as tracking, analytics, and personalization.

The Cloud SDK supports the following Sitecore products:

• XM Cloud

• Sitecore Customer Data Platform (CDP)

• Sitecore Personalize

XM Cloud starter kit

The starter kit is a code base that’s intended to be the basis of most XM Cloud implementations. To use it, you select the foundation template option when creating a new project. It is open source, and available on GitHub. Using the foundation template ensures you get the most stable and up-to-date version of the assets, references, assemblies, and artifacts we recommend using when you start building a solution with XM Cloud. It includes:

• Local development workstation resources that support debugging and testing.

• JSS and headless libraries.

• Headless SXA reference components, written in Next.js.

• Personalization and analytics middleware.