skills/forcedotcom/afv-library/salesforce-experience-site

salesforce-experience-site

Installation
SKILL.md

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when you need to:

  • Create Experience Cloud sites or communities
  • Build LWR (Lightning Web Runtime) sites
  • Set up site configuration and settings
  • Generate Experience Site metadata
  • Troubleshoot deployment errors related to Experience Sites

Specification

Experience LWR Site Metadata Specification

An LWR site can be represented by metadata DigitalExperienceConfig, DigitalExperienceBundle, Network, CustomSite, and CMS contents. Your purpose is to assist developers in creating and editing these metadata.

Supported Template Types

Template name - Template DevName

  • Build Your Own (LWR) - talon-template-byo

Core Properties

Before doing anything else, identify the following properties from the local project if available. Check with the user if any of the following is missing:

  • Site name: Required. (e.g., 'My Community').
  • URL path prefix: Optional. Alphanumeric characters only. Convert from site name if not provided (e.g., 'mycommunity') and verify with the user for the converted value.
  • Template type devName: Optional. Defaults to talon-template-byo.

General Tips

TIP 1. When available, the site developer name can be found in the CustomSite filename (e.g., sites/MySite.site-meta.xml → developer name is MySite).

Project Structure in DigitalExperienceBundle Format

Site Metadata

  • DigitalExperienceConfig
    • Path: digitalExperienceConfigs/{siteName}1.digitalExperienceConfig-meta.xml
  • DigitalExperienceBundle
    • Path: digitalExperiences/site/{siteName}1/{siteName}1.digitalExperience-meta.xml
  • Network
    • Path: networks/{siteName}.network-meta.xml
  • CustomSite
    • Path: sites/{siteName}.site-meta.xml

DigitalExperience Contents

  • Path: digitalExperiences/site/{siteName}1/sfdc_cms__*/{contentApiName}/*
  • Description: These are the content components defining routes, views, theme layouts, etc. Each component must have a _meta.json and content.json file.

Content Type Descriptions

Content Type Description When to Use
sfdc_cms__site Root site configuration containing site-wide settings Required for every site; one per site
sfdc_cms__appPage Application page container that groups routes and views Required; defines the app shell
sfdc_cms__route URL routing definition mapping paths to views Create one for each page/URL path
sfdc_cms__view Page layout and component structure Create one for each route; defines page content. Also use to edit existing views (e.g., adding/removing components, updating theme layout)
sfdc_cms__brandingSet Brand colors, fonts, and styling tokens Required; defines site-wide styling
sfdc_cms__languageSettings Language and localization configuration Required; defines supported languages
sfdc_cms__mobilePublisherConfig Mobile app publishing settings Required for mobile app deployment
sfdc_cms__theme Theme definition referencing layouts and branding Required; one per site
sfdc_cms__themeLayout Page layout templates used by views Create layouts for different page structures

Important: Creating any new pages require BOTH sfdc_cms__route AND sfdc_cms__view.

CUD Operations on DigitalExperience Contents

  • Users can perform create, update, delete operations on DigitalExperience Contents.
  • IMPORTANT: Before ANY modification (create, update, or delete) to content, ALWAYS call execute_metadata_action first to get the schema, examples, and instructions for that content type.
  • Call once per content type per user request: If you're creating/modifying multiple items of the same content type (e.g., creating 3 routes), you only need to call execute_metadata_action ONCE for that content type. Reuse the schema and examples for all items of that type within the same user request.
  • For each unique content type you need to work with, call execute_metadata_action using the following:
{
  "metadataType": "ExperienceSite",
  "actionName": "getSiteContentMetadata",
  "parameters": {
    "contentType": "<content type from table above>",
    "shouldIncludeExamples": true
  }
}
  • Do not call the execute_metadata_action MCP tool with any other site actionName unless specified in this knowledge doc/instructions.

Retrieving Site URLs After Deployment

After successfully deploying the site using sf project deploy, use the execute_metadata_action MCP tool to get the preview and builder URLs:

{
  "metadataType": "ExperienceSite",
  "actionName": "getSiteUrls",
  "parameters": {
    "siteDevName": "<site developer name>"
  }
}

Refer to TIP 1 to get the site developer name.

If the site is not found, an error message will be returned indicating that the site may not be deployed. Ensure the site has been successfully deployed before calling this action.

Enhancement Rules

  • If need to understand how site metadata should be configured, use the get_metadata_api_context MCP tool to get the schemas.

  • Use MCP tool execute_metadata_action with getSiteTemplateMetadata to get the knowledge document about the template and its default configurations if needed. IMPORTANT: This MUST be used for new site:

{
  "metadataType": "ExperienceSite",
  "actionName": "getSiteTemplateMetadata",
  "parameters": {
    "templateDevName": "<template DevName, e.g. talon-template-byo>"
  }
}
  • To validate Experience Site metadata, run CLI command sf project deploy validate --metadata DigitalExperienceBundle DigitalExperience DigitalExperienceConfig Network CustomSite --target-org ${usernameOrAlias}

Guest User Sharing Rules (Public Sites Only)

When to use: Only create guest sharing rules when the user explicitly wants to make the site public (accessible to unauthenticated visitors). If the site is private/login-required, guest sharing rules are not needed. If sharingRules metadata is not available locally in force-app/main/default/sharingRules, retrieve it from the org before creating new rules.

To get the full SharingRules schema, use the get_metadata_api_context MCP tool:

{
  "metadataType": "SharingRules"
}

XML Example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<SharingRules xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
    <sharingGuestRules>
        <fullName>ShareAccountsWithSiteGuest</fullName>
        <accessLevel>Read</accessLevel>
        <includeHVUOwnedRecords>false</includeHVUOwnedRecords>
        <label>Share Accounts With Site Guest</label>
        <sharedTo>
            <guestUser>[site developer name]</guestUser>
        </sharedTo>
        <criteriaItems>
            <field>Name</field>
            <operation>notEqual</operation>
            <value>null</value>
      </criteriaItems>
    </sharingGuestRules>
</SharingRules>

Refer to TIP 1 to get the site developer name.

Critical Requirements

  1. SharedTo Element: Must use <guestUser>{siteName}</guestUser> where {siteName} is the Network name (not URL path prefix).
  2. includeHVUOwnedRecords: Required field. Set to false unless records owned by high-volume site users should be included.
  3. One XML file per object: Put all rules for a given object in one file. Do not create additional.

Common Mistakes

  • Using <role> or <group> instead of <guestUser> in sharedTo
  • Omitting the required includeHVUOwnedRecords field
  • Using includeRecordsOwnedByAll (that's for sharingCriteriaRules, not guest rules)

Workflows

Creating a new site

  • Verify with user on the value of site name, url path prefix, and site template type.
  • Retrieve template information from getSiteTemplateMetadata and strictly follow the rules of its knowledge document.
  • Proceed to the workflow of editing an existing site.

Editing an existing site

  • Identify the intent of the user and break it down into steps.
  • Make use of get_metadata_api_context if user wants to edit site metadata.
  • Use getSiteContentMetadata to understand how to edit site contents.
  • Once the tasks are done, perform site metadata validation.
Weekly Installs
1
GitHub Stars
202
First Seen
Mar 16, 2026