Organizing Content Policies in AEM

Due to the amount of items that can be defined in policies, this .content.xml file can quickly grow and be difficult to manage and prone to merge conflicts.

The policy .content.xml file that the AEM Project Archetype generates defines the JCR nodes and properties of content under the polices node. Instead of defining all the JCR content in one file, this can easily be expanded to multiple files, creating a less error-prone, easier way to manage policies.

To do this, take the JCR structure defined in the policy .content.xml file and create folders and .content.xml files down to the component level. The goal is to take the default structure and convert it into manageable pieces.

Default Structure:

Updated Structure:

By doing this, developers are able to manage policies at the component level in individual files.  No more need to sort through hundreds of lines of configuration within one file.  For example, all policies that are relevant to the button component will live in a .content.xml file in this location:

The final policy for the button component (the .content.xml file) would look like this:

The new policy is much easier to consume and manage moving forward and accomplishes the same goal as the original approach.  As component libraries grow, this allows policies to scale with them in a pain free way.