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AEM Glossary

Short, plain-English definitions of the terms used across this site. Where a concept has a dedicated page, the term links to it.

A​

ACL (Access Control List) A set of permission entries (allow/deny privileges for a principal) attached to a repository path. Permissions inherit down the tree. See Security & Permissions.

AEM as a Cloud Service (AEMaaCS) The Adobe-managed, auto-scaling cloud version of AEM, deployed through Cloud Manager. See AEMaaCS vs AEM 6.5.

Asset Compute The AEMaaCS microservice framework that generates asset renditions on upload (the cloud replacement for the DAM Update Asset workflow). See Assets & DAM.

B​

Blueprint The source site in Multi-Site Manager from which Live Copies inherit content. See Multi-Site Manager & i18n.

Bundle An OSGi module: a JAR with extra metadata that can be installed, started, and stopped at runtime. Your project's Java code ships as a bundle. See OSGi Fundamentals.

C​

Client Library (clientlib) A managed bundle of CSS/JS served by AEM, identified by a categories value. See Client Libraries.

Closed User Group (CUG) A publish-tier access policy that restricts a content branch to authenticated, authorized visitors.

Component A reusable, configurable unit of content/markup. Most project components are proxies of Core Components. See Your First Component.

Content Fragment (CF) Channel-neutral, structured content authored against a model and delivered via GraphQL/REST or HTL. See Content Fragments.

Content Policy The design-time configuration of a component within a template (allowed components, styles, defaults), stored under /conf. See Templates & Policies.

Coral UI Adobe's design system / web-component library that renders the Touch UI (dialogs, consoles). See Coral UI.

CRXDE Lite A browser-based repository explorer (/crx/de) for inspecting and editing JCR nodes. Local SDK only on AEMaaCS.

D​

DAM (Digital Asset Management) The /content/dam subtree and tooling for storing assets (images, video, documents) as dam:Asset nodes. See Assets & DAM.

Design Dialog A component's policy dialog (_cq_design_dialog) whose values are stored on the template policy and apply to all instances. See Component Dialogs.

Dialog The Touch UI form (_cq_dialog) authors use to configure a component instance. See Component Dialogs.

Dispatcher Adobe's caching/security layer (an Apache module) in front of the publish tier. See Dispatcher & Caching.

E​

Editable Template A template authored in the UI (stored under /conf) that keeps a live connection to pages created from it. The modern alternative to static templates. See Templates & Policies.

Experience Fragment (XF) A reusable, presentation-ready group of components (with layout) that can be embedded on multiple pages or exported to other channels. See Experience Fragments.

G​

Granite UI The server-side framework of form fields and components that render the Touch UI authoring interface. See Component Dialogs.

GraphQL API AEM's query API for delivering Content Fragments to headless consumers; the schema is generated from CF Models. See Headless GraphQL.

Groovy Console A community tool for running Groovy scripts against a running instance for maintenance and bulk operations. See Groovy Console.

H​

HTL (HTML Template Language) AEM's secure, server-side templating language (formerly Sightly) used to render components. See HTL Templates.

I​

i18n Internationalization -- translating UI strings via dictionaries resolved in HTL/Java. See Multi-Site Manager & i18n.

Immutable / mutable repository On AEMaaCS, /apps and /libs are immutable (deploy-time only) while /content, /conf, /home, /var are mutable. See AEMaaCS vs AEM 6.5.

J​

JCR (Java Content Repository) The hierarchical content database (a tree of nodes and properties) at the heart of AEM, implemented by Apache Jackrabbit Oak. See The JCR & Sling.

L​

Live Copy An MSM site/branch that inherits from a Blueprint and can selectively break inheritance for local overrides.

Lucene index The standard Oak full-text/property index type used for custom AEM queries. See Search & Indexing.

M​

MSM (Multi-Site Manager) The framework for reusing content across regions/brands via Blueprints and Live Copies. See Multi-Site Manager & i18n.

Multifield A dialog widget that lets authors add n repeatable entries; composite multifields store structured sub-nodes. See Component Dialogs.

O​

Oak Apache Jackrabbit Oak, the scalable repository implementation backing the JCR in modern AEM.

OSGi The Java module/service runtime (Apache Felix) AEM is built on; your services are OSGi components wired by Declarative Services. See OSGi Fundamentals.

Overlay Customizing /libs functionality by mirroring its path under /apps (supported on 6.5; not for /libs on AEMaaCS). See Overlays.

P​

Proxy component A project component that inherits from a Core Component via sling:resourceSuperType, customizing only what it needs. See Templates & Policies.

R​

RDE (Rapid Development Environment) An AEMaaCS environment that accepts fast, direct code/config pushes for quick iteration. See Deployment & Cloud Manager.

Rendition A generated, derived copy of an asset (resized/reformatted) used for delivery.

repoinit A Sling language for declaring users, groups, paths, and ACLs that are applied deterministically on startup -- the supported way to manage permissions as code. See Security & Permissions.

Replication Copying content from author to publish (also called activation/publishing). AEMaaCS uses managed Sling Content Distribution; 6.5 uses replication agents. See Publishing & Replication.

S​

Service user A least-privilege system account application code uses (via a subservice mapping) instead of an admin session. See Sling Models.

Sling Apache Sling, the REST framework that maps HTTP requests to JCR resources and selects scripts/servlets to render them. See The JCR & Sling.

Sling Model An annotation-driven Java POJO that adapts a resource/request and exposes data to HTL. See Sling Models.

Style System A policy feature that lets authors apply predefined CSS classes to components without code changes.

T​

Template The blueprint for a page's structure, initial content, and policies. See Templates & Policies.

Touch UI The modern, Coral-based authoring interface (as opposed to the legacy Classic UI). See Touch UI.

Traversal A query that scans nodes one by one because no index matches -- slow and dangerous in production. See Search & Indexing.

W​

Workflow An automated, multi-step process (with automated and human steps) run by the Granite Workflow engine. See Workflows.

See also​