AEM Sites Architect Master key terms

A template authored in the AEM UI whose structure, policies, and initial content are stored as content, allowing authors and architects to change layout and allowed components without developer code deploys.

A legacy template defined in developer code and configuration files rather than as repository content, offering limited runtime flexibility and largely superseded by editable templates in modern AEM projects.

A configuration linked to a template that constrains component behavior for pages built from it, such as allowed components, style variations, and responsive settings, and is inherited by child pages.

The locked region inside an editable template that defines the fixed page skeleton, including header and footer components, which authors cannot delete or rearrange on pages created from the template.

A responsive grid container component that holds and positions other components, supporting per-breakpoint column layouts and serving as the primary drop zone for page authoring.

A component that inherits from a core or foundation component and only overrides specific properties, enabling reuse of shared logic while customizing dialogs, markup, or behavior for a project.

Adobe-maintained, extensible, and accessible components distributed separately from the product, intended as the recommended building blocks for new AEM Sites projects and frequently proxied for customization.

A repository folder grouping CSS and JavaScript assets with dependency declarations, which AEM compiles and serves through a generated URL to control load order and caching.

A mechanism that overlays and merges resource properties from multiple paths, letting projects customize dialogs and components without copying or editing the original definitions.

A structured, schema-driven content asset composed of elements defined by a Content Fragment Model, reusable across channels and exposed as JSON through AEM's assets API for headless delivery.

A data schema that defines the elements, data types, and validation rules for content fragments, and controls how fragments are exposed and queried through the GraphQL API.

A reusable group of page components with its own layout and variations, deliverable as HTML or JSON for reuse in AEM pages, other channels, or third-party systems.

A named alternative rendering of an experience fragment, such as web, mobile, or email, letting one fragment serve different channels or layouts from shared source content.

A configured AEM service URL that exposes content fragment data through schema-driven queries, supporting filtering, pagination, and persisted queries for headless applications.

A GraphQL query stored in the repository and invoked by name, reducing request size, enabling caching and access control, and recommended over sending full query text from clients.

An architecture where content is consumed by decoupled front ends or apps via APIs such as GraphQL or REST, rather than rendered by AEM page templates.

A framework that serializes Sling Models to JSON or other formats via annotations, commonly used to expose component data through APIs for headless or hybrid delivery.

A Java class annotated to map repository resources and request data to typed objects, encapsulating business logic for components and keeping HTL templates free of code.

A server-side templating language formerly called Sightly that enforces separation of markup and logic through restricted expressions, automatically context-aware escaping output for security.

A reverse-proxy and caching module in front of AEM that serves cached pages and assets, filters requests, and load-balances to publish instances to improve performance and security.

The on-disk store of rendered responses managed by the Dispatcher, governed by cache rules and headers that determine which requests are cached, invalidated, or passed through.

A replication agent on publish that sends cache invalidation requests to the Dispatcher when content is activated or deactivated, keeping cached pages consistent with the repository.

A cache directive specifying how long a response may be reused before revalidation, balancing freshness against origin load for pages and assets.

A configuration block defining a set of cache rules, filters, and backend render hosts that the Dispatcher serves, allowing different behavior per site or domain.

A rule set that allows or denies request URL patterns before they reach AEM, protecting internal paths and limiting exposure of administrative or sensitive endpoints.

A configured transport that copies content between AEM instances, typically author to publish, and can be triggered by activation, workflows, or scheduled actions.

The newer publish mechanism using distribution queues and a transport layer, replacing classic replication for scalability and supporting both push and pull topologies.

Adobe's managed CI/CD service for AEM Cloud Service that builds code, runs quality and security checks, and deploys to environments through pipelines.

The Adobe-managed AEM offering with automatic updates, cloud-native infrastructure, and constrained customization, differing from on-premise and managed services deployments.

A Cloud Manager workflow that builds, tests, and deploys code or front-end assets to defined environments, either for full-stack code or for web-tier-only changes.

A Cloud Service constraint under which certain repository areas such as /apps and /libs cannot be modified at runtime, requiring configuration and code to be deployed instead.

A named activation state such as author, publish, or dev that selects which OSGi configurations and services apply on a given AEM instance.

A set of service properties applied to AEM components at runtime, stored in the repository or deployed as configuration files, controlling behavior per runmode and environment.

An access control list of permission entries attached to a repository path, granting or denying privileges such as read, write, or replicate to users and groups.

A collection of users used to assign permissions and roles collectively, simplifying administration and enabling consistent access across environments and teams.

A publish-side group that restricts access to content so only authenticated members can view protected pages, enforced by the authorization model and Dispatcher configuration.

A page or site tree linked to a source blueprint through inheritance, so content changes on the source can be rolled out to the copy according to configured synchronization rules.

The source configuration in Multi Site Manager that defines which live copies exist and which rollout configurations govern how changes propagate to them.

The process of pushing content changes from a blueprint to its live copies, applying synchronization actions and respecting inheritance cancellations made locally.

A translated version of a site structure produced through translation workflows, often structured as live copies to support ongoing synchronization with the master language.