Blyth's Blog: A Technical Architect's Musings

A practical look at Optimizely Opal’s Instructions feature — from built-in agents to creating and managing custom instruction workflows. Ideal for teams scaling AI-powered content with structure and intent.

Explore the challenges and opportunities of working with Optimizely SaaS, GraphQL fragments, and headless CMS architectures. Learn practical solutions with .NET BFF APIs, GraphQL.NET, and modular content strategies for modern front-end frameworks.

Discover how Optimizely’s AI Agents leverage agentic AI to autonomously execute complex tasks, enhancing digital workflows and driving innovation for technical leaders.

Enhance your Optimizely CMS personalisation by integrating Cloudflare's geolocation headers. Learn how my Cloudflare Geo-location Criteria package simplifies visitor group targeting.

Explore Optimizely CMS's latest roadmap, packed with developer-focused updates. From SaaS speed to Visual Builder enhancements, developer tooling upgrades, and Graph-first architecture in CMS 13, see how these innovations empower modern content delivery.

Simplify your Optimizely SaaS CMS workflow with the Interim DAM Picker Chrome extension. Seamlessly integrate your DAM system, streamlining asset selection and insertion. Enhance content creation efficiency and ensure brand consistency. Try it today!

Andy Blyth has been honoured as an Optimizely MVP, recognising his contributions to the Optimizely community. Learn how this achievement will enhance 26 DX’s ability to deliver cutting-edge digital solutions.

Discover the future of content management with Optimizely SaaS CMS. Enjoy seamless updates, reduced costs, and enhanced flexibility for developers and business practitioners. Boost your digital strategy with enterprise-grade security and an improved...

As always, it depends. With it's comprehensive and proven support for complex business needs across various deployment scenarios, it fits very well to enterprise needs. And you should always choose based on your needs, not on hype or buzzwords. If you...

Explore why C# developers should embrace Node.js especially with Optimizely's SaaS CMS on the horizon. Understand the shift towards agile web development and how mastering Node.js can open up new opportunities in the evolving digital landscape.

Join me as I transition from DEPT® to a new role as Technical Architect at 26, celebrating an 8-year journey of growth and looking forward to innovative challenges ahead.

Explore the 7-second rule's transformative impact on group discussions and brainstorming sessions in digital agencies, promoting inclusivity, creativity, and thoughtful participation.

In the world of software development, the Iron Triangle (also known as the Project Management Triangle) serves as a visual metaphor to understand the constraints of project management: scope, time, and cost. For developers, working within these...

Discover the power of the 'Four Ds' of time management — Do, Delegate, Defer, Delete — tailored for developers at all levels in digital agencies. From junior coders to senior architects, learn how to enhance productivity, streamline projects, and foster...

Explore the step-by-step guide to setting up Optimizely with dotnet aspire and C# 8.0, tailored for developers seeking to enhance their digital projects. Dive into my comprehensive walkthrough on the Optimizely Aspire GitHub repository.

Explore how I'm helping my son learn Python to bridge the gap in computer science education. As the head of .NET development at DEPT® and a concerned parent, I understand the importance of equipping our children with essential skills for the future. Join ...

As the head of development at DEPT®, I've seen firsthand that being a great developer means more than just writing clean and efficient code. To truly excel in this field, you must adopt a mindset of continuous improvement, be open to learning new skills...

I recently passed my Sandan (3rd Dan) grading in Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, and it was an experience I will never forget. The journey to this point has been a long and challenging one, filled with ups and downs, but ultimately, it was a moment of triumph that...

As a software developer, you're always looking for ways to improve your skills, stay focused, and maintain a healthy work-life balance. But have you ever considered the benefits of practicing martial arts? From physical fitness and mental toughness to...

Discussing the benefits of local load testing, and how k6 can also be used for regression/integration testing

Now that Optimizely 12 runs on .NET 5 it can be run on a Mac, and with most front enders using Macs, I thought it might be useful to demonstrate the steps on how to get it up and running on a Mac.

The role of a Technical Architect seems to be on of the more fluid roles in a Digital Agency, each Technical Architect has different skills, and each project has different requirements.

Finally default values have been added as an option in Content Models in the Contentful CMS

Also built on Contentful and Azure Cognitive Search

Contentful doesn't have an option to choose a target for links in a rich text field (yet), so for now I assume that external links should be opened in a new tab. This is achieved with an IContentRenderer.

After sitting the exam, I thought I would document some of the ways I prepared for the exam, and what I found most useful out of the material.

This week I successfully passed my Optimizely (formerly Episerver) Content Cloud certifcation.

Contentful does have some basic search functionality, but it is quite limited and quite difficult to implement (at least in .net). So leveraging Contentful webhooks I decided to index the data into Azure Cognitive Search service.

What a busy week

Contentful have recently introduced tagging, I think this is a really important step forward for the headless CMS.

Can emoji's be used in URLs, page titles and meta data? 🤔😂😂

My approach to dynamic CMS content using Mediatr (and Automapper)

A simple episerver project with a couple of basic page types to show how an Initializable Module can be used to generate pages that QA and UAT teams can use during their testing/sign off process. I have used Bogus and Waffle to generate realistic...

A categorised list of nuget packages that I tend to use in most projects. Covers data access, business logic, and presentation packages.

After primarily working with SDL Tridion for the past 5 years (along with Contentful) and prior to that Umbraco. I have recently started working with Episerver, and I wanted to give my initial thoughts on it. After starting the training/certification I...

There are two basic types of programming languages, object-oriented and functional, what happens with these worlds collide?

A nice script I put together to do load testing based on the contents of a sitemap.

My solution to the writing SDL Web Topology Powershell scripts