Optimizely CMS 13 and the Alloy demo site

The Alloy demo site has been around for ages, and it now works on Optimizely CMS 13. If you want a quick way to explore CMS 13 locally, Alloy is a useful starting point because it gives you a working sample site and admin UI out of the box.

Install the templates

First, install the Optimizely project templates:

dotnet new install EPiServer.Templates

Create a new project

Next, create a new Alloy MVC project:

dotnet new epi-alloy-mvc

Update the NuGet packages

To make package updates easier, first install dotnet-outdated-tool:

dotnet tool install --global dotnet-outdated-tool

Then update all packages to the latest available versions:

dotnet outdated -u

The output should look something like this.

Run the solution

Start the site locally:

dotnet run

On first run, you’ll be prompted to create an admin account so you can sign in.

Once the site is running, take a look at the updated admin UI and browse the solution in VS Code. Alloy is still a handy way to get familiar with how an Optimizely CMS site is put together.