Editing hosts and rendering hosts
An XM Cloud environment code-base, when created using the XM Cloud Deploy app, contains:
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The content management instance and all the setup required for running it in Docker containers.
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A front-end application and all the setup required for rendering and editing content, layout, and so on.
An XM Cloud environment uses an editing host for enabling editing experiences in editors such as Pages.
The rendering host
The front-end application is also referred to as "the rendering host," and it is used for displaying the website to your audience. You host the application on platforms such as Vercel.
This application is set up and scaled to serve live traffic.
The editing host
The editing host serves only to allow editing experiences inside the XM Cloud instance and is not set up or scaled for serving live traffic.
The editing host is, essentially, a set of configurations telling Sitecore XM which application code and settings to use when displaying the pages of your site in an advanced content and layout editor such as Pages.
The editing host code is that of the rendering host application, and you update it with the latest changes when you deploy your solution to XM Cloud.
Therefore, when you develop your front-end application, you must propagate your changes to the XM Cloud environment. You do this by:
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Deploying your customizations to XM Cloud with the Sitecore CLI.
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Committing and pushing your changes to the repository and branch you configured for automatic deployments.
When you create an environment using the XM Cloud Deploy app, the environment is set up with a default editing host. This editing host works out of the box on your remote XM Cloud instance.
For any other scenarios, you must configure the editing host yourself.