Integration Framework (IFX)
Arc XP's Integration Framework (IFX) is a hosted SaaS solution that makes it easy to extend, integrate, and customize your Arc XP environment. With IFX, you can quickly write and deploy custom code without managing infrastructure, enabling faster development and more flexible workflows.
By offloading infrastructure and security concerns to Arc XP, IFX simplifies your tech stack and consolidates more functionality onto a single platform.
IFX's core capabilities
IFX allows you to perform the following actions:
Build custom integrations on your timeline, reducing time-to-market.
Integrate seamlessly with Arc XP products.
Connect with third-party and proprietary systems.
Access logs and metrics for easier debugging.
Manage integrations and deployments through APIs.
How IFX works
An IFX integration is hosted code where you define custom logic. You subscribe to events (such as story:update) that Arc XP applications emit. When an event is triggered, your integration receives the event data and executes your custom logic (for example, auto-tagging a story.)
The following diagram visualizes this workflow:
IFX basics
Integrations allow you to interact with other platforms and insert custom logic into the workflow. With IFX doing all of the hard work in the background for you, it's easy to get up and running quickly using the IFX Node.js SDK.
You subscribe to specific events and specify which integration should respond.
Use the IFX Node.js SDK to get started quickly. The SDK handles most of the underlying complexity so you can focus on your code.
Developer experience
The IFX engine and SDKs are built to provide a seamless developer experience. When you create an integration, IFX automatically provisions everything you need, including secure hosting, secrets management, and scaling, so you can start coding immediately.
Security is built in, aligned with Arc XP's high standards, eliminating the need to manage your own security infrastructure.
To support developers further, IFX includes evolving documentation, code samples, and best practices.
IFX use cases
Traditionally, extending Arc XP required setting up and maintaining your own servers, security, and infrastructure, often demanding AWS knowledge and months of setup.
With IFX, you can create and deploy integrations in minutes. Arc XP handles the infrastructure, scaling, and security, and you get built-in tools, SDKs, and recipes to streamline development.
Common uses cases include:
Enrich and syndicate content - transform data and sync it with external systems. Streamline your publishing pipeline with automated workflows.
Add SEO tags automatically - use AI to generate and insert tags when a story is published, freeing editors to other tasks.
Verify story links - parse and validate links on publish to prevent broken links. Flag issues via Workflow Status or WebSked tasks.
Insert affiliate links automatically - detect and convert eligible links into affiliate links on publish. Integrations handle external API calls and update the story content.
Automate WebSked workflows - respond to WebSked events with custom actions, automating publishing, scheduling, or notifications.
Send push notifications - format and push breaking news headlines and images to a notification service when a story is published.
Cost and time savings
With IFX, you skip the upfront infrastructure effort and ongoing maintenance. Consider the difference:
Task | Self-hosted setup | Using IFX |
|---|---|---|
Infrastructure development | 6+ months | 0 |
Infrastructure maintenance | Ongoing | 0 |
Integration development | 3 months (post-infrastructure setup) | 1 day (simple integrations) to 1 week (complex integrations) |
IFX provides a starter package for every integration, including SDK access, connectors, and testing tools. With no need to build from scratch, your team can start coding immediately.
We also offer plug-and-play recipes to speed up common use cases that you can adapt as needed.
A Kinesis comparison
Using Arc XP's Kinesis streams without IFX requires multiple setup steps in AWS, IAM role configurations, custom pipelines, logging, monitoring, and more, just to receive events.
With IFX:
You receive a single event per user action, not 12 noisy Kinesis messages.
You avoid the setup and maintenance overhead.
You simplify the logic and reduce development time.
Getting started
To start using IFX, contact Arc XP Customer Support.
You can also review the following resources:
Developer documentation: