Distribution Overview

Developers may distribute App Builder applications privately or publicly.

Private

Privately distributed apps are available only to users in the Developer's organization. They are submitted through the Developer Console, reviewed by an Administrator of the organization, and accessed through the App Builder Catalog.

See Publishing Your First App Builder Application for a thorough discussion of this topic and a hands-on sample project.

Note: Only Adobe Experience Cloud Shell extensions may appear in the App Builder Catalog.

Public

Publicly distributed apps are available for installation by anyone on Adobe Exchange.

Overview

Publicly distributed applications are available for any Adobe organization to install and distribute for access through Adobe Exchange. These apps are submitted through Adobe Developer Distribution and reviewed by Adobe. This section reviews configuration options and the steps required to prepare your app for public distribution.

Customer configuration

Developers of publicly distributable apps can define configuration options for customers to set during installation.

Defining customer configuration options

Customer configuration can be defined through the configSchema property.

app.config.yaml

application:
  <application config>
extensions:
  <extension configs>
configSchema: # This is a top-level property and is global to the app and all extensions
  title: 'the title'
  description: 'the description'
  properties:
    - title: 'Slack Webhook'
      type: 'string'
      description: 'Please provide the webhook used by this application. Configure in slack.com'
      envKey: 'SLACK_WEBHOOK'

Usage

The envKey property of a customer configuration option maps to the environment variable name in the app.

Runtime action

To use customer configuration in a Runtime action, map the envKey value for the desired variable to the inputs of the Runtime action, then access values via params.<envKey> in the action code.

app.config.yaml

configSchema:
  title: 'the title'
  description: 'the description'
  properties:
    - title: 'enable caching'
      type: 'boolean'
      envKey: 'IS_CACHING_ENABLED'                      <--- Environment variable name
application:
  actions: actions
  web: web-src
  runtimeManifest:
    packages:
      dx-excshell-1:
        license: Apache-2.0
        actions:
          generic:
            function: actions/generic/index.js
            web: 'yes'
            runtime: nodejs:16
            inputs:
              LOG_LEVEL: debug
              IS_CACHING_ENABLED: $IS_CACHING_ENABLED   <--- Mapped environment variable
            annotations:
              require-adobe-auth: true
              final: true
              code-download: true

Action code

async function main (params) {
    if (params.IS_CACHING_ENABLED) {
        enableCache()
    }
}

exports.main = main

Web application

To use customer configuration in a web application, access values directly through process.env.<envKey>.

app.config.yaml

configSchema:
  title: 'Configurable Web App'
  description: 'Web application that can be configured.'
  properties:
    - title: 'Frontend background color'
      type: string
      description: 'Please provide the background color for your frontend'
      enum:
        - blue-400
        - celery-400
        - indigo-400
      envKey: FRONTEND_BACKGROUND_COLOR                <--- Environment variable name
application:
  web: web-src

Component.js

<View backgroundColor={process.env.FRONTEND_BACKGROUND_COLOR}></View>

Customer configuration types

Text field

configSchema:
  title: 'Configure your application'
  description: 'Set configurable variables for this Slack application'
  properties:
    - title: 'Slack Webhook'
      type: 'string'
      description: 'Please provide the webhook used by this application. Configure in slack.com'
      envKey: 'SLACK_WEBHOOK'
      default: 'https://slack.com/webhook'

Checkbox

configSchema:
  title: 'Configure your application'
  description: 'Customize this application to meet your needs.'
  properties:
    - title: 'Enable caching'
      description: 'Determines whether or not the app caches.'
      type: 'boolean'
      envKey: 'IS_CACHING_ENABLED'

configSchema:
  title: 'Configurable Web App'
  description: 'Web application that can be configured.'
  properties:
    - title: 'Frontend background color'
      type: string
      description: 'Please provide the background color for your frontend'
      enum:
        - blue-400
        - celery-400
        - indigo-400
      envKey: FRONTEND_BACKGROUND_COLOR

Secret

configSchema:
  title: 'the title'
  description: 'the description'
  properties:
    - title: 'aws secret key'
      type: 'string'
      secret: true 
      envKey: 'AWS_SECRET'

Note: This secret screenshot is pending a bug fix.

Multiple configuration options

configSchema:
  title: 'Configurable Web App'
  description: 'Web application that can be configured.'
  properties:
    - title: 'Frontend background color'
      type: string
      description: 'Please provide the background color for your frontend'
      enum:
        - blue-400
        - celery-400
        - indigo-400
      envKey: FRONTEND_BACKGROUND_COLOR
    - title: 'Enable caching'
      description: 'Determines whether or not the app caches.'
      type: 'boolean'
      envKey: 'IS_CACHING_ENABLED'
    - title: 'Slack Webhook'
      type: 'string'
      description: 'Please provide the webhook used by this application. Configure in slack.com'
      envKey: 'SLACK_WEBHOOK'
      default: 'https://slack.com/webhook'

Required products

Developers of publicly distributable App Builder apps can define Adobe products that are required for their apps to work properly. The Discover and Acquire sections of the distribution documentation show how these options are surfaced to customers.

Defining required products

Required products can be defined using the productDependencies property.

app.config.yaml

application:
  <application config>
extensions:
  <extension configs>
configSchema: 
  <customer configuration>
productDependencies: 
  - code: AEP
    minVersion: 0.0.0
    maxVersion: 1.0.0

Valid products

AEM - Experience Manager
AAM - Audience Manager
ANLYTC - Analytics
CMPGN - Campaign
TRGT - Target
AEP - Experience Platform Services
COMMC - Commerce Cloud
MRKTO - Marketo Engage
WRKFRNT - Workfront
AAC - Advertising Cloud
RTCDP - Real-time Customer Data Platform
AJO - Journey Optimizer
CJA - Customer Journey Analytics
GPM - GenStudio for Performance Marketing

Product version information can be found on Adobe Experience League.

Packaging for developer distribution

Once an app is configured for public distribution, it can be packaged and uploaded to Adobe Developer Distribution.

The aio app pack command verifies and bundles applications for upload. In the root of your app folder, run:

aio app pack

When it completes, you will find the app package in your app folder as dist/app.zip. Continue to the Adobe Developer Distribution documentation for details on how to upload it.

Validation

When a Developer uploads a package to Adobe Developer Distribution, these validations are performed:

app.config.yaml is checked for format validity, returning configuration errors to fix if necessary
package.json version format must be X.Y.Z, where X, Y, and Z are non-negative integers
files to be packaged - all files in your app folder will be packaged except:
- files specified in .gitignore
- files specified in .npmignore
- any dist folders
- any dot files (.env, .gitignore, etc)
- any OS junk files (.DS_Store, thumbs.db, etc)
event registrations, if any, for validity

Hooks

Two hooks are available to customize the packaging step:

pre-pack - runs before packaging
post-pack - runs after packaging

Hook-handler functions will be passed two items:

appConfig (object) contains the configuration of the current application
artifactsFolder (string) is the location of the folder that contains all the packaging artifacts to be bundled

Next step

Return to the Guides Index.

Distribution Overview

Private

Public

Overview

Customer configuration

Defining customer configuration options

Usage

Runtime action

Web application

Customer configuration types

Text field

Checkbox

Dropdown

Secret

Multiple configuration options

Required products

Defining required products

Valid products

Packaging for developer distribution

Validation

Hooks

Next step