Introduction to App Builder
Historically, ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Commerce development has used in-process extensibility. The in-process model requires any new code to be compatible with upgrades, the server’s PHP version, and many other essential server applications and services that Commerce uses. ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Developer App Builder uses out-of-process extensibility to avoid these compatibility issues.
App Builder for ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Commerce app-builder
ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Developer App Builder is a serverless extensibility platform for integrating and creating custom experiences to extend ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ solutions, and it’s now available for ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Commerce. With App Builder, you can build secure and scalable apps that extend Commerce-native functionality and integrate with third-party solutions. As a developer, you can now take advantage of out-of-process extensibility with ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Commerce and that in turn provides immediate and long-term benefits.
App Builder provides a unified third-party extensibility framework for integrating and creating custom applications that extend ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Commerce. Since this extensibility framework is built on ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ’s infrastructure, developers can build custom microservices, and extend and integrate ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Commerce across other ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ solutions and third-party integrations.
App Builder provides a way for customers to extend ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Commerce in various use cases:
- middleware extensibility - Connect external systems with ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ applications by building custom connectors or take advantage of a suite of pre-built integrations.
- core services extensibility - Extend core application capabilities by extending the default behavior with custom features and business logic.
- user experience extensibility - Extend core experience to support business requirements or build customer-specific digital properties, storefronts, and back-office applications.
ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Developer App Builder is a cloud-based solution, which means that it automatically scales. This service is also globally distributed to allow the best performance regardless of your geographic location.
Why should you learn more about App Builder
Since ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Commerce is not a fully SAAS product, the code you develop can add complexity and upgrade issues. By using out-of-process extensibility, such as App Builder, you can provide custom, unique functionality to your ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Commerce store without requiring in-process methods.
Other benefits include:
- Decoupled features allow for faster time to launch.
- Upgrades are now easier. The custom features are outside the Commerce codebase, which prevents compatibility issues when upgrading.
- Moving features and logic outside of Commerce frees up resources that are normally used by in-process development methods.
Architecture architecture
Instead of an out-of-the-box solution, ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Developer App Builder provides a common, consistent, and standardized development platform for extending ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Cloud solutions such as ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Commerce including:
- ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Developer Console used for custom microservice and extension development. Build and manage projects while accessing all the tools and APIs needed to create plugins and integrations.
- Open-source tools, SDKs, and libraries to build custom extensions and integrations. Use React Spectrum (ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ’s UI toolkit) to have one common UI for all ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ apps.
- services such as I/O Runtime for hosting infrastructure on ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ’s serverless platform and I/O Events for event-based integrations. ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ also provides out-of-the-box support for storing data and files.
- ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Experience Cloud where you submit extensions and integrations to publish in your Experience Cloud Org. System admins can review, manage, and approve these extensions. Once published, your custom App Builder extensions and tools are available alongside other ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Experience Cloud apps.
The following diagram illustrates how a standard application built on App Builder uses these functionalities:
For more details about the App Builder architecture, see the .
Amazon Sales Channel extension amazon-sales-channel-extension
The following tutorials demonstrate how to connect ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Commerce to Amazon Sales Channel using an App Builder extension.
Get Started with App Builder additional-resources
A n overview of composable commerce strategy, that includes the initial set-up can be found by reading the following blog post:
To help you get started with App Builder, ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ has created the following documentation:
Continue learning with Documentation appbuilder-documentation
App Builder provides videos and documentation for developers, including guides and reference documentation to help develop your own custom applications:
Try Out One of the Sample Applications appbuilder-codesamples
Ready to start developing? The following link contains sample applications to help get you started:
Support support
For developer support requests, use the for assistance.