Run Modes in AEM: Configuration and Best Practices

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) uses Run Modes to define environment-specific behavior. They allow you to load configurations, enable bundles, and apply settings tailored for development, staging, or production without duplicating code.

Out-of-the-Box Run Modes

AEM provides several default run modes:

• author – For content creation and management.
• publish – For delivering content to end users.
• samplecontent – Includes demo content (enabled by default).
• nosamplecontent – Excludes demo content.

Important:

• ‘author’ and ‘publish’ cannot be used together.
• ‘samplecontent’ and ‘nosamplecontent’ cannot be used together.
• These run modes are set at installation time and cannot be changed later.

Setting Run Modes (Precedence Order)

AEM determines active run modes based on the following precedence:

1. sling.properties file

Located at: /crx-quickstart/conf/sling.properties

Example: sling.run.modes=author,stages

2. The ‘-r’ option during startup

Example: java -jar cq-6-p4502.jar -r stage

3. System property in start script

Example: -Dsling.run.modes=publish,prod

4. Filename detection

AEM can infer run modes from the quickstart JAR filename: cq-author-p4502.jar

5. Defining run modes in web.xml (Application Server Deployment)

When deploying AEM in an application server, configure: WEB-INF/web.xml

Set: sling.run.modes

Best Practices

• Use author for content creation and publish for delivery.
• Avoid mixing incompatible run modes.
• For custom environments (e.g., ‘dev’, ‘stage’, ‘prod’), define additional run modes using ‘-r’ or system properties.
• Keep run mode configuration consistent across clustered instances.

Run Modes in AEMaaCS (Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service)

AEMaaCS introduces immutable infrastructure, which changes how run modes work:

• No manual configuration files like ‘sling.properties’ or JAR filename detection.
• Run modes are predefined by Adobe for environments:
  • ‘author’ for authoring tier.
  • ‘publish’ for publishing tier.
• Additional run modes such as ‘dev’, ‘stage’, ‘prod’ are managed via Cloud Manager pipelines and configurations in Git.
• OSGi configurations are handled using Configurable OSGi via code:
  • Place environment-specific configs under: /apps/<project>/config.<runmode>
  • Example:
    • /apps/myproject/config.author
    • /apps/myproject/config.publish
    • /apps/myproject/config.prod
• Important Points for AEMaaCS
  • You cannot change run modes at runtime.
  • Deployment is immutable; all changes must go through the pipeline.
  • Use config folders and runmode-specific directories for OSGi settings.
  • Avoid relying on legacy methods like ‘-r’ or ‘sling.properties’—they do not apply in Cloud Service.

Why Run Modes Matter

Run modes allow you to:

• Load environment-specific OSGi configurations.
• Enable/disable bundles based on environment.
• Apply different logging, replication, and workflow settings.