CodeArts Optimizely Developer Weekly
Top Stories
My Takeaway from Optimizely Opal Agents in Action 2026 - What Agentic AI Means for the Future of Digital Marketing
Optimizely’s Opal platform has evolved into a full‑stack agentic AI system that embeds conversational agents across CMS, experimentation, analytics, and content workflows, allowing marketers to run multi‑step research, document analysis, and automated reporting from a single chat interface. Developers can now extend Opal with custom tools via the Opal Tools SDK (Python/FastAPI), create isolated agent roles, and orchestrate multi‑agent workflows that trigger emails, webhooks, or scheduled actions—all governed by configurable instance, personal, and role‑based instructions to keep outputs aligned with brand and policy. This shift from single‑response generative AI to embedded, task‑orchestrating agents promises deeper integration and operational automation for enterprise marketing teams.
Announcing Stott Security Version 5.0
Stott Security v5 has been released for Optimizely CMS 12+ (with a CMS 13‑ready build in the works), adding a fully rebuilt Custom Headers UI that lets you add, remove or disable headers and exposes an “isRemoval” flag via the headless API. The update also introduces a scheduled audit‑record clean‑up job (default 2 years) and a new free‑text search on audit logs, plus a granular import tool that lets you select exactly which settings to bring in. All features are available as a free, open‑source add‑on on NuGet.
Alloy Aspire Scaffold, or how to simulate the Optimizely DXP setup on your dev machine
Alloy Aspire Scaffold is a new .NET template that spins up a full DXP‑style local topology for Optimizely CMS 13 PaaS (Preview) using .NET Aspire 13. It launches the standard Alloy site across multiple app instances with YARP, Azurite, a queue, and SQL Server, letting developers catch distributed‑bug issues locally before they reach production.
OpenAI-Driven AI Assistant for TinyMCE in Optimizely CMS 12
Tiny.AI is a new CMS 12 add‑on that embeds OpenAI directly into the TinyMCE editor, letting editors rewrite, summarize, expand, or translate text without leaving Optimizely. The plugin safely processes HTML and returns clean, CMS‑ready output, eliminating formatting issues that arise from copying content to external AI tools. This makes AI‑powered content editing fast, secure, and fully integrated for Optimizely developers.
Lessons from Building Production-Ready Opal Tools
Optimizely developers can now build production‑ready Opal tools by adopting enterprise‑grade practices: robust error handling with structured responses, comprehensive logging and observability, performance optimizations (caching, batch calls, parallel execution), and strict security (env‑based credentials, input validation, least‑privilege tool scopes). These guidelines enable AI agents to reliably call external APIs, troubleshoot failures, and generate actionable reports while maintaining fast, secure workflows. Implementing these patterns turns simple Opal tools into dependable, audit‑ready components for real business operations.
Tutorials And Guides
Discover concise, step‑by‑step tutorials that help you jump straight into development. For instance, our “Your first SAAS Project – Setup” guide walks you through cloning the Remko StarterKit for Optimizely SaaS, installing Node 18+ with Yarn 4.5+, configuring a .env.local, and running `yarn dev` to launch a ready‑to‑use Next.js server, complete with automated `yarn opti‑cms` commands for content generation and TypeScript sync.
Your first SAAS Project -- Setup
TLDR: The new Remko StarterKit for Optimizely SaaS gives developers a ready‑to‑run boilerplate—just clone the repo, install Node 18+ with Yarn 4.5+, set up a .env.local with CMS URL, GraphQL keys, and REST API credentials, then run `yarn dev` to launch a Next.js dev server at localhost:3000. It also ships a suite of `yarn opti-cms` commands that auto‑generate content type components, pull JSON type definitions, create GraphQL fragments, and keep TypeScript code in sync, streamlining end‑to‑end development.
Developer Tools
In this issue, we highlight Optimizely’s new SaaS Migration Tool—an OAuth2‑enabled browser utility for quick content parity checks—and the updated Package Explorer that now fully renders nested inline blocks, compositions, and layout hierarchies, making package inspection smoother than ever.
Optimizely CMS SaaS Migration Tool
Optimizely now offers a SaaS Migration Tool that lets developers connect to multiple environments via OAuth2, compare content types and display templates, view structured diffs, export JSON, and track parity before exports/imports. The tool is still in active development and is best used for quick existence checks rather than full content sync, but it fills the gap until official migration features arrive. It’s available on GitHub and live on Vercel for instant browser use.
Inspect SaaS CMS Packages Without Losing Your Sanity (Package Explorer Update)
The new Optimizely Package Explorer now fully displays nested inline blocks in CMS 12 and PaaS exports, and adds support for Visual Builder’s compositions, layout hierarchies, and display templates in SaaS CMS (and upcoming CMS 13). This update lets developers inspect and understand complex package contents with far less confusion, keeping their sanity intact when working with exported packages.
Community Content
In this month’s Community Content we unpack Optimizely’s new MVP Technical Roundtable on building resilient, high‑performance campaigns, the enterprise‑ready evolution of Opal into a robust AI‑agent platform, advanced Hangfire job management for catalog traversal, and a Base64 trick to bypass WAF blocking in CMS 11. These stories give developers concrete guidance on scaling automation, optimizing job pipelines, and securely embedding third‑party scripts.
From Vision to Velocity: Introducing the Optimizely MVP Technical Roundtable
Optimizely now offers a two‑part Technical OMVP Roundtable that dives into the “how” of building resilient, high‑performance campaigns. Episode 1 covers modern CMS 12 & .NET Core migrations, breaking‑change survival, and the modern stack, while Episode 2 explores SaaS CMS, Visual Builder, scalability, experimentation, and leveraging Optimizely Graph + ODP for sub‑second personalization. The series delivers real‑world best practices and shortcuts straight from leading architects and engineers, giving developers concrete guidance for complex implementation challenges.
Is Opal the Enterprise-Ready Evolution of OpenClaw?
Optimizely Opal has evolved from the experimental OpenClaw automation into a full‑blown, enterprise‑ready AI agent platform, adding governance, monitoring, and policy controls for large‑scale execution. Developers now can deploy complex, AI‑driven workflows with built‑in security and compliance, replacing the earlier personal‑automation approach. This shift unlocks robust, scalable automation that integrates seamlessly into Optimizely’s broader experimentation ecosystem.
Catalog Traversal with Hangfire. Part 3: Advanced Job Management
Part 3 dives into advanced Hangfire job management for the catalog traversal service, adding features like job chaining, custom retry logic, and real‑time monitoring dashboards. It shows how to gracefully handle failures and back‑off strategies, reducing memory overhead and keeping traversal efficient. Optimizely developers can now schedule, orchestrate, and debug catalog jobs with far less boilerplate, making the traversal pipeline more robust and maintainable.
Bypassing WAF Blocking in Optimizely CMS 11 with Custom Base64 Properties
Optimizely developers can now store raw third‑party scripts in Site Settings without triggering WAF checks, thanks to a new client‑side Base64 mixin that encodes `<script>` tags into an alphanumeric `SAFE:`‑prefixed string before sending them to the server. A custom `PropertyBase64String` backing type transparently decodes the stored Base64 back to raw HTML for rendering while handling legacy data, and UIHint descriptors (`Base64TextArea`/`Base64TextBox`) let editors use familiar textarea or textbox controls. Use the property as usual in Razor (`Html.Raw`) and the solution keeps page models clean while maintaining strict security.
Release Notes
This release introduces Fotoware.ContentPlatform.Plugins.Optimizely v3.1.2, unifying DAM asset management across Optimizely CMS and Commerce with bug fixes and performance improvements, and resolves the compatibility issue between Commerce 14.45.0 and CMS 12.34.2 by recommending an upgrade to Commerce 14.45.1 to eliminate catalog UI flicker.
Fotoware.ContentPlatform.Plugins.Optimizely v3.1.2
Fotoware.ContentPlatform.Plugins.Optimizely v3.1.2 releases an updated add‑on that brings Fotoware’s ContentPlatform DAM into Optimizely CMS and Commerce, giving developers a unified way to manage media assets across sites and storefronts. The new version includes bug fixes and performance improvements that streamline the integration workflow, making it easier to retrieve, tag, and publish DAM content directly from the CMS or commerce backend. This update enhances the developer experience by simplifying asset lifecycle management within Optimizely environments.
Commerce 14.45.0 is incompatible with CMS 12.34.2 (but that's an easy fix!)
Commerce 14.45.0 is incompatible with CMS 12.34.2, causing the Catalog UI to flicker due to repeated /contentstructure requests. The issue is fixed in Commerce 14.45.1, so upgrade to that patch version to restore normal catalog behavior. Happy upgrading!