Cloud Sandbox Setup

This post describes how to setup a Cloud Sandbox development environment. It is required, that your company or organization has assigned you a Cloud Sandbox environment. In most cases, these are not self-service and need to be payed for.

This guide assumes you have access to a Cloud Sandbox environment and are familiar with AEM development. This guide additionally assumes, that you have Maven 3 and Java JDK 21 installed.

General Setup Steps

1. Download the latest AEM SDK from the Adobe Software Distribution, login using your Adobe Account / SSO.
   • At the time of writing, the latest version is AEM SDK for AEM v2026.2.24288.20260204T121510Z-260100
2. Ensure you have access or are able to create a new sandbox via the Experience Cloud - Cloud Manager.
   • Note, when unused, it is possible that the sandbox might get deleted automatically.
3. In your Cloud Manager Program, note down your Git Repository information, via 'Program -> Overview -> Pipelines -> {} Access Repo Info'.
   • You will need the URL and Password, to setup the Cloud Git as a second origin later.
   • I suggest to also setup a personal repository (in GitHub etc) to store your code, in case your Sandbox gets archived.
4. Create a new local AEM project, buy using the Maven AEM Archetype.
   • For a more in-depth guide, read my local development setup post.
   • https://github.com/adobe/aem-project-archetype
   • https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-manager-core-components/using/developing/archetype/overview
5. Boot up a local Author and Publish instance
6. Deploy your initial maven archetype code to the local Author instance
   • mvn clean install -PautoInstallSinglePackage -> Author
   • mvn clean install -PautoInstallSinglePackagePublish -> Publish
7. Initialize your local Git repository and push your code to your private repository
8. Add your Cloud Git repository as a second origin to your local Git repository
   1. git remote add cloudmanager https://git.cloudmanager.adobe.com/some-org/some-program
   2. git push cloudmanager main
9. Create a new deployment pipeline in Cloud Manager and deploy your main branch

Example Maven Archetype Command

mvn -B org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-archetype-plugin:3.3.1:generate \
 -D archetypeGroupId=com.adobe.aem \
 -D archetypeArtifactId=aem-project-archetype \
 -D archetypeVersion=56\
 -D appTitle="My Site" \
 -D appId="mysite" \
 -D groupId="com.mysite" \
 -D includeExamples="y" \
 -D includeErrorHandler="y" \
 -D datalayer="n"