Get started developing with Commerce Connect
The Optimizely Commerce Connect platform foundation provides the core technical building blocks that underpin an Optimizely Commerce Connect implementation. It covers integration with Content Management System (CMS 13) and takes advantage of .NET 10 and modern APIs to ensure your solution is built on a current, well-supported stack.
The foundation addresses the essential concerns of any enterprise commerce platform: serialization for data interchange, caching strategies tuned for Commerce Connect performance needs, and an events system for reacting to changes across the application. Globalization support enables multi-language and multi-region scenarios, and the initialization system gives developers a structured way to configure and bootstrap the application at startup.
For observability and diagnostics, the Logging API provides a consistent approach to recording application activity. Routing defines how URLs are resolved and generated across catalog and content pages. Scheduled jobs let recurring background tasks — such as indexing, reporting, and inventory updates — run automatically. Workflows and activities enable the modeling of multi-step business processes, such as order approval or content publishing flows.
Together, these components form the technical foundation on which Commerce Connect features are built and customized.
Commerce Connect 15 requires CMS 13 and .NET 10. If you are migrating from an earlier version, see Breaking changes in CMS 13 before you begin.
To set up Commerce Connect, complete the following steps:
- Configure a development environmentConfigure a development environment with everything you need to start developing, including IIS, .NET 10, SQL Server, and Visual Studio.
- Create a starter projectCreate a starter project for your development project. Commerce Connect 15 is compatible with the OptiAlloy sample site pattern introduced in CMS 13.
- Add ecommerce functionalityAdd ecommerce functionality, such as catalog content and rendering, shopping cart and checkout functionality, shipping and payment methods, and search functionality.
The following resources provide additional context for Commerce Connect development: