About

Document Authoring is the fastest CMS on the planet. It combines the simplicity of document-based authoring with the power of Adobe Experience Manager.

Abstract

Document Authoring (DA) is an early-access technology preview from Adobe. It provides a fully integrated and authenticated document-based authoring experience for common tasks that are hyper-specific to web content management (WCMS) needs.

While Microsoft SharePoint and Google Drive solve many content management needs (compliance, authentication, authorization, versioning, collaboration, etc.) they are not tailor made for the needs of AEM Edge Delivery Customers. When pushed to their limits, these existing content repositories can have a feeling of, "square peg in a round hole." Companies of a certain size with certain acceptance criteria may find these tools cumbersome.

Conversely, while incredibly powerful and flexible, traditional Java-based AEM may be considered too monolithic for modern work streams.

Goals

  1. Fast and reliable APIs - At least 1000 docs per minute. Engineered on the edge for high availability.
  2. Adobe-grade author experience - Collaborative. Spectrum 2. Vertically integrated Adobe identity.
  3. 100% native Edge Delivery format - Mix and match with existing content providers like SharePoint and Google Drive.
Zero code changes for delivery.
  4. Business-class features - Bulk tooling, healthcare-grade versioning, detailed audit logs.
  5. Rich integration with AEM as a Cloud Service - Leverage the best asset and taxonomy manager in the world.

In scope

At its core, DA is:

  1. An API to store docs, sheets, and media at scale.
  2. A series of UIs for humans to manage content.
  3. A content provider for AEM Edge Delivery Services.

Out of scope

DA is not:

  1. A WYYSIWYG editor - This is provided by Universal Editor which can access DA APIs
  2. A markdown editor - There are too many different flavors of Markdown and the APIs are not native to the browser.
  3. An SPA editor - We recommend Universal Editor for all headless use cases.
  4. A general purpose SharePoint / Google Drive replacement. - We still encourage different personas to use their existing authoring tools.
  5. An AEM Assets replacement. - We do not want to re-invent the wheel. In our view, AEM Assets is already the pinnacle of asset management.
  6. Designed to host direct web traffic. - DA is a fully authenticated application and has been built hand in hand with Edge Delivery for delivery.

Inspired by

  1. AEM Edge Delivery Services - Serverless, Simple, Fast.
  2. Apache Sling - Wherever you POST, that's where your content will be. Wherever you GET, that's what you'll get.
  3. SharePoint & Word - High velocity content creation. The muscle memory of using Word is critical.

Principles

  1. No markdown - Markdown is great for viewing and writing but provides a poor developer experience when considering different flavors and the ubiquity of DOM APIs.
  2. As fast as a website - Flawless Core Web Vitals.
  3. Document-based - Un-apologetically a document-based editor.
  4. Small API surface - The server should be as dumb as possible. The goal is to serve static files with no manipulation.
  5. 5 customer rule - Prototype like it won't last more than 20 days, build like it will last 20 years.
  6. Mobile first - If it doesn't work on mobile, it doesn't exist.

Status

After much research, the Dark Alley POC is done. We are in the midst of several implementation projects in and outside of Adobe.

  1. POC - Done
  2. Pilot - Done
  3. First customer - Done
  4. First non adobe.com customer - Done
  5. Security, privacy, on-call, etc. review  - Never done. :-)
  6. General Availability - Targeting July 31st.