What's New in Platform Tools

Release dates

Release summary

Users affected

Admins, Authors

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release includes improvements to the propagation of Author Service updates, ensuring that the update date is correctly set for downstream services. It also includes an update to the metrics used for monitoring the application

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release updates the internal libraries the application uses to connect to its back-end datastore. There are no changes to the application, and no disruptions are expected

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

The Author API now returns a CloudFront distribution link for authors' images, enabling faster image retrieval.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

Author Service now supports Portuguese (Brazil) and defaults to Portuguese (Brazil) instead of Portuguese (Portugal) when the default language is set to Portuguese. 

Users affected

All users

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

We're excited to announce an update to our Author service Kafka-Kinesis-Mirror (KKM) stream. Now, developers can seamlessly account for author deletions with a new event specifically tailored to track author deletions on Arc XP. 

Sample Author Delete Event Message

{
   "type":"author-service",
   "operation":"delete",
   "date":"2024-02-08T23:49:47+00:00",
   "id":"testDeleteUser",
   "body":{
      "_id":"testDeleteUser",
      "type":"author",
      "version":"0.5.8",
      ...
      "additional_properties":{
         "original":{
            ...
         }
      }
   }
}

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release introduces a feature that enables Arc XP to monitor the user of unexpected data and/or unexpected field values in API DSL queries, helping to ensure system security and stability.

This update is similar to the change released on April 7 and is intended for internal Arc XP monitoring purposes only.

Users affected

None

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release introduces a feature to allow Arc XP to monitor the usage of unexpected parameters and/or unexpected parameter values in API requests to ensure system security and stability.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release improves the logic that prevents documents from being left in an incorrect state due to closely timed updates (race conditions), and also includes an update to the metrics used for monitoring the application.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release includes an internal change in the logic to maintain restrictions logic availability.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

The following fields are removed from a number of Content API responses:

It is no longer necessary for you to continue filtering these fields in the relevant content sources. Editorial fields remain in the /scan endpoint as well as KKM messages.

This release also includes updates to the internal libraries the application uses to connect to its back-end datastore. No changes are occurring with the application, and no disruptions are expected due to this update.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

If you have a print integration, check if any of these editorial fields are transferred from Arc XP into your print CMS and used by the print production teams. If any of these fields are in use, you must update the integration to use the Content API /scan endpoint or connect with Draft API directly for editorial fields.

Release dates

Release summary

This release updates the underlying infrastructure supporting the application, requiring less maintenance and enabling faster response times and improved adaptability to usage spikes.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

The service's deployment configuration is updated to improve overall stability. There are no changes to the API or the code, and no disruption is expected.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This is a maintenance release with minor performance optimizations for /scan, /collections, and /count/tags endpoints. No major change expected.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This is a maintenance release with minor performance optimizations for search requests. No major change expected.

Users affected

Developers

Action required 

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release enhances the logic for deleting documents in Content API and improves logging. It also includes an upgrade to the version of the Facebook Graph API used for denormalizing oEmbeds.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release improves how Content API stores and updates internal fields used by editorial applications. 

Users affected

None

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release upgrades the code version that Content API is running, as well as the memory configuration for the service.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release allows customers who are using Clavis v3 to search content in Content API using indexed taxonomy fields.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This update enhances how the Content API handles redirects. Now, it batches updates to older redirects, ensuring they are successfully saved and point to the latest URLs.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

Developers

Release dates

Release summary

This release enhances Arc XP's monitoring capabilities and upgrades to the search engine for Content API. 

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release fixes an issue with removing duplicates from search results in a multi-lingual Arc XP environment. The change operates behind the scenes and does not affect the user interface or experience. Additionally, this release includes performance improvements in the background processing of Content API stories in some edge cases. 

Users affected

Developers, Editors

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release contains performance enhancements.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release contains routine maintenance with no impact expected. 

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

Duplicate items are no longer returned in multi-site search results. 

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

A filter now exists to remove internal website section data that isn't necessary for webpage rendering. This resolves the issue where this internal data was briefly visible in certain instances.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

We're updating Content API with more of the changes we've been working on for better resource utilization. No customer impact is expected.

This release also removes three remaining editorial fields from Content API responses by default as well as adding a non-editorial field back into Content API responses. This change affects only clients that are opted in to the removal of these fields. If you’re interested in opting in, contact Arc XP Customer Support. 

Removed:

Added:

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release updates Content API's search engine to facilitate better support for multi-language requirements in the future. 

Users affected

Editorial Users

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release of Content API improves handling of redirects by reducing the number of operations needed to update stories with a large number of redirects. No customer impact is expected.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release updates the underlying logic to store documents and forward the operation messages to our event stream. You should not notice any changes; however, if you experience issues (behavior change with IFX integrations or Kinesis streams for example), contact Arc XP Customer Support.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

Content API and Tags API no longer accept HTTP GET requests with bodies. Although this functionality has never been supported or documented for these APIs, there have been instances where incoming HTTP requests contained content inside the request body. Until now, Content and Tags API accepted HTTP GET requests, which goes against HTTP specifications and could potentially introduce security vulnerabilities in the Arc XP platform.

Following this security update, clients that initiate GET requests that include a request body will be rejected with an HTTP 403 Forbidden response code.

We expect the impact to be minimal because the request body that is included in a GET request is never processed by Content and Tags API in the first place. The APIs function by parsing the information passed through the query parameters only, as is described in the API documentation. However, you must remove GET requests from the body in order to have your GET requests succeed going forward.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

If you issue GET requests to Content or Tags API, you must update your code to not include any content in the request body.

No other actions are required at this time as all other request parameters remain unchanged. See our API documentation for more details.

Release dates

Release Summary

Starting Monday, January 13 in Production, the WebSked team is releasing updates to WebSked’s internal Content Search engine API. This should have no impact on you or your users. However, because this API serves many of the pages in WebSked, the team is releasing the updates on a rolling basis.

From January 13 through January 24, the WebSked team is releasing the updates to only a handful of customer Production environments each day. If you want to know the exact date when the team is updating your Sandbox, contact Arc XP Customer Support, who can share that date with you.

Feel free to test WebSked’s Planning pages in Sandbox to confirm that no disruption appears in your search results.

Users affected

None

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release includes the following changes:

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This update improves the performance of Draft API when circulating documents. 

Users affected

Developers, editors

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This update improves how the Draft API handles ANS versions. Now, the Draft API automatically updates older documents to the latest ANS version, ensuring they save successfully and stay up-to-date with the latest schema.

Bug fixes

This update also includes some important bug fixes:

Users affected

Developers, Editors

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

Performance enhancements

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release enhances Arc XP's monitoring capabilities for Draft API. You shouldn't notice any impact from these changes.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

The Draft API now lets users create document redirects from uncirculated URLs with the document redirect endpoint. This change supports some legacy workflows that have not transitioned to the vanity redirect endpoint. To learn more about redirects in Arc XP, see What are the different kinds of redirects in Arc XP?.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

In this update to Draft API, calls to the /draft/v1/{type}/{id}/revision endpoint return all story fields for each revision. Previously, the response contained only a subset of story fields for each revision.  

Developers should be aware of these non-breaking changes to the API and be informed that the updates are rolling out individually to customers over the next several months. We will notify you before the change is enabled in your Sandbox or Production environments.

Overview of New Functionality

The /draft/v1/{type}/{id}/revision endpoint returns all story fields for each revision, nested under the ans parent field.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

January 24, 2023 -- This update has been canceled. Thanks to feedback from customers, Arc XP will not move forward with this update and has identified another path to manage pressure on the cache clear queue.

Release dates

Bug fix summary

Arc XP fixed a bug where publish events with no priority were incorrectly categorized to the standard publish queue. This miscategorization occurred when the integrating application did not specify an Arc-Priority header, and the fallback was set to 'standard' instead of 'ingestion'.

For context, the Draft API offers two lanes of updates: standard and ingestion. Segmenting historical content allows Arc XP to ensure that live content authored in Composer is always treated with the upmost urgency. This is particularly important for publishing updates and clearing the caches so that your readers have quick access to the latest content.

Applying the incorrect priority to your content can cause stale content. This bug fix protects you from stale cache clear behavior that can occur if the system is overloaded with 'standard' updates. Arc XP reserves the right to disable an integration abusing the standard priority lane.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

Action is required if you use an external CMS to produce live content where publish time and prompt cache clearing are important. In this scenario, you must update the integration to include the Arc-Priority HTTP header with the value of 'standard'.

The Arc XP team is excited to announce updates to Arc XP’s core content authoring service, the Draft API.

The Draft API has been part of the Arc XP architecture since 2021, but some of the legacy infrastructure was in use to streamline the customer migration. Now, we’re in the process of removing the legacy services and fully relying on the modernized content publishing engine that will serve as the foundation of Arc XP’s next chapter.

To facilitate this upgrade, customers who have been on the Arc XP platform for more than a year are being migrated to the new infrastructure. This change is intended to be completely seamless and will not have an impact on your user experience within Composer or the available Draft APIs.

As we complete this migration, we can turn our focus to enabling new capabilities that help you accelerate your digital transformation and create compelling content at scale.

Previously, our communications mentioned terms such as “Stateless” and “Stateful.” Feedback from customers let us know that this terminology was confusing and didn’t enhance your understanding of how the Arc XP platform was being upgraded. Going forward, we are dropping these terms and focusing our attention on getting all customers onto the updated Content Platform and delivering the new capabilities that this platform enables. 

Release dates

Release summary

This release updates the internal libraries the application uses to connect to its back-end datastore. There are no changes to the application, and no disruptions are expected.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

The service's deployment configuration is updated to improve overall stability. There are no changes to the API or the code, and no disruption is expected.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

We're excited to announce an update to our Site Service Kafka-Kinesis-Mirror (KKM) stream. Developers can now seamlessly track when a new website is created, updated, or deleted through a new notification message tailored specifically for each of these events on Arc XP.

These messages are automatically triggered whenever these operations occur through the Sites UI in Arc XP or using the Sites API. If you're interested in receiving these messages through the Arc XP KKM data service, you can request access by contacting Arc XP Customer Support.

For your reference, here are the message payloads:

Website created

{
  "type":"site-service",
  "operation":"insert",
  "id":"site_id",
  "organization_id":"org_id",
  "date":"yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ssZ"
}

Website updated

{
  "type":"site-service",
  "operation":"update",
  "id":"site_id",
  "organization_id":"org_id",
  "date":"yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ssZ"
}

Website deleted

{
  "type":"site-service",
  "operation":"delete",
  "id":"site_id",
  "organization_id":"org_id",
  "date":"yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ssZ",
}

This update aims to streamline website management and enhance developers' ability to monitor site-related activities effectively.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release includes an updated logging system for the Site Service API back end. This update applies to all customer environments without causing any service interruptions or planned downtime.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

Users reported that newly created fields of type slug, under Fields, were being treated as “Required” when they were marked as “Default”. In other words, if a new “slug” field was created using the “Create a new field” form and marked as a default field, the field appeared in Sites as a required field (marked in red) even in cases when the “Required Field” setting was not opted in during field creation. 

The fix resolves this behavior by not making default fields, required unless they were explicitly marked as “Required” when being created using the “Create a new field” form under Fields.

Users affected

Developers and publishers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

The View API is being updated to remove all editorial fields, similar to the recent announcement for the Content API: Content API editorial fields deprecation notice. 

The following fields will be removed from all View API responses:

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

Referent updates

The initial release of the View API included proactive cache clearing based on cache-tags for the top-level story object, such as a story. For example, the cache for a specific Collection would be dropped when any of the top stories in the Collection were published. 

With this release, View API proactively clears the cache following most referent content updates including:

The following events do NOT trigger referent updates:

For example:

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

Arc XP is excited to announce that the View API is now generally available, following a successful beta program. Thanks to all the customers who participated and provided feedback. We’ve made updates, plotted a roadmap based on that feedback, and are now ready to share the View API with the wider world. 

Contact Arc XP Customer Support to get started with the View API.

View API is a read-only API that delivers content to the web, mobile, and other digital properties using Arc XP as a headless CMS solution. Having an easy-to-use API for content retrieval allows you to easily pull content into any platform or application, empowering you with the flexibility and scalability you need to grow your business and adapt to the ever-changing technology landscape. 

View API is a REST API and is available through a scalable and resilient Arc XP delivery layer, minimizing latency and improving content availability.

Key Capabilities

Key Benefits

Ideal Use Cases

Users affected

Developers

Action required

Contact Arc XP Customer Support to get started with the View API. 

Release dates

Release summary

This update resolves an issue that caused delayed CDN propagation of PageBuilder Editor changes to Pages. You can now expect updates made to Pages in PageBuilder Editor to become visible to your readers in under one minute.

What happened:

A Delivery API patch deployed on November 25, 2024 introduced a new security requirement between cache-clearing sub-services. As a result, updates made to Pages in PageBuilder Editor (like changing a value of a custom field) did not trigger the normal automated CDN cache clearing. Instead, changes to the affected pages became visible only when their CDN time-to-live (TTL) expired and a new copy was fetched from Page Builder. This led to a degraded experience where updates took up to two minutes (the default CDN TTL) to become visible to readers, rather than the expected under-one-minute refresh.

What you should know:

For more information, see Caching at Arc XP and Content Freshness.

Users affected

All customers

Action required

None