How I used AI to generate and orchestrate composable websites in Sitecore Cloud

Check out my new blog post - "How I used AI to generate and orchestrate composable websites in Sitecore Cloud" 🚀. This was a Sitecore internal #hackathon project and it aligned so well with the other stuff I worked on this year 🤗! https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-i-used-ai-generate-orchestrate-composable-cloud-alex-doroshenko-ngfjc 

(Not so) Obvious Next.js / Vercel / Sitecore Horizon performance improvements

Sitecore Horizon is a modern way to visually edit Sitecore websites. Paired with Next.js and Vercel, it provides great editing experience.

But how does it actually work and what are the potential bottlenecks?

In a typical setup (without Next.js / Vercel), the data flow is pretty simple:

Sitecore on Kubernetes Tips and Tricks

If you're reading this blog, it is likely that you've already tried our Sitecore 10 on Docker locally and now wondering "how do I push this stuff to production?". As some would expect, this is not as straightforward and you can't just run docker-compose in production. This is why I've created this video: Sitecore on Kubernetes Tips and Tricks. I'm not going over setting up a cluster in Azure but I'll give some intro on how to connect and get started, some common issues and advices.

Let me know if you like this format in the comments below. If this video gets fair amount of views - I will share some tips on creating Helm charts for Sitecore deployments in another video.

Sitecore SXA CLI how-to: compile and minify CSS at the build server

During the last few weeks I worked a lot with SXA themes and the thing I was concerned about was: storing CSS/JS files in media library / serialization.

Well, there is nothing wrong with media library and it is extremely useful for distributed setups, but pushing compiled (or even minified) files to GIT just to make sure they will be added to the deployment package seemed painfully wrong.

Additionally, it caused merge conflicts when multiple people worked on front-end part of the site.

Luckily, it is not complicated at all to change that while maintaining typical delivery workflow. What we need to do is:

1. Compile / minify .SCSS into .CSS at the build server
2. Convert compiled file (i.e. *-min.css) into the .yml
3. Package .yml into update package (trivial with Sitecore Courier)

Sitecore SXA CLI tips & tricks

I've been working with SXA themes recently and came across this great blog post by Serge van den Oever on creating a custom theme for SXA using SXA CLI and wanted to share a few extra tips on top of it.

Automate Sitecore dev env setup with Sitecore.HabitatHome.Utilities

Having worked with Sitecore for more than 10 years, I always embraced automation in QA/Production deployments as well as development environments. Most of the projects had a nice little README that started with:

1. Make sure you have Sitecore X.Y Update Z installed
2. Install module X version Z and module Y on top of it
3. Run ".\deployDevevelopmentEnvironment.ps1"

Sitecore Content Hub + Glass Mapper = friends?

I've been recently exploring Sitecore DAM (Content Hub) module and installed it on existing website that used Glass Mapper. I followed the installation guide, configured all required properties, updated image field value to use the logo from the Content Hub and... nothing changed at front-end, the hero image was still being served from the media library.