Set up the project for local development

In Sitefinity NextGen, the Sitefinity CMS application is provided as a service that is fully managed by Progress Software (SaaS). With this setup, code customizations can be implemented only through the ASP.NET Core Renderer application.

The project’s code files can be accessed from the Repos section on the Management Portal. You can clone the repository for local development.

To set up the ASP.NET Core Renderer on your local development environment, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your Sitefinity NextGen Management Portal.
2. Navigate to Repos » Files.
3. In the branches dropdown, select the project branch that you want to setup locally.
   For example, select main.
4. To clone the project Git repository on your local machine, click the Clone button, located in the upper right corner of the screen.
   
5. You can clone the repository using the command line or by selecting an IDE you want to clone to.
   For example, to clone the project in Visual Studio, from the IDE dropdown, select Clone in Visual Studio. Then specify your Microsoft Entra ID (formerly, Azure AD) credentials, when prompted by the Visual Studio.
   

After you have cloned the repository locally, you must configure the Renderer application to connect to a Sitefinity NextGen instance hosted in the cloud. In Sitefinity NextGen, you can connect your local ASP.NET Core Renderer application only to a non-Production environment, which is Authoring in a default setup.

When you connect your local Renderer application, you must configure the LocalValidationKey property of the ASP.NET Core Renderer application. Your local Renderer application will send the LocalValidationKey with each request. When the HTTP request reaches the cloud-hosted ASP.NET Core Renderer application, it will compare the incoming LocalValidationKey with its own RemoteValidationKey. If they match, then the setup will be successful, and you will be able to develop locally against the cloud-hosted version of application.

To configure the LocalValidationKey property of the ASP.NET Core Renderer application, perform the following:

1. Navigate to your dedicated Key Vault instance in the Azure portal.
   
2. On the Key Vault left-hand sidebar, select Objects and then select Secrets.
3. Select LocalValidationKey and from the listed versions, select the current version of the value.
4. In the dialog that opens, copy the value specified in Secret value.
5. On your local Renderer, edit the appsettings.json file and under “Sitefinity” section, add the validation key and edit the URL in the following way:
6. Save and close the file.
7. Build the project.

To run the ASP.NET Core Renderer application on the local environment, execute the dotnet run command and navigate to: https://localhost:5001/Sitefinity or http://localhost:5000/Sitefinity