Runtime Modes
This section describes how to use the runtime mode setting to optimize Umbraco for the best development experience or optimal production environment.
Configuring the runtime mode
You can configure the runtime mode to optimize Umbraco for different development experiences and environments by setting Umbraco:CMS:Runtime:Mode
to one of the available modes:
BackofficeDevelopment
(default)Development
Production
This can be done via the appsettings.json
file, environment variables, or any other .NET configuration provider (like Azure Key Vault/App Configuration). Although this setting affects how Umbraco behaves at runtime, some modes have prerequisites on how the project is built/published. Make sure to read the descriptions of each mode before changing this setting from the default BackofficeDevelopment
mode, as incorrect configuration can result in your application not starting (by throwing a BootFailedException
).
BackofficeDevelopment mode
The BackofficeDevelopment
mode is the default behavior for Umbraco: it does not optimize Umbraco for any specific environment and does not have any prerequisites. This mode allows for rapid development (without having to recompile/rebuild your project), including all development from within the backoffice.
Development mode
The Development
mode can be used when you're developing from an IDE (like Visual Studio, VS Code, or Rider) or the dotnet CLI (e.g. using dotnet watch
). It is a recommended prerequisite if you want to use the Production
mode in your production environment.
This mode disables in-memory ModelsBuilder generation and validates the following setting:
Umbraco:CMS:ModelsBuilder:ModelsMode
is not set toInMemoryAuto
.
If you want to use the generated models, use SourceCodeAuto
or SourceCodeManual
, which requires manually recompiling the project after the models have changed (e.g. after updating Document Types, Media Types, Member Types, or Data Types). Razor views (cshtml
files) will still be automatically compiled at runtime, allowing you to quickly iterate on the rendered output from templates, (macro) partial views, and view components.
The recommended approach to enable Development
mode is to update the appsettings.json
file with the following settings:
Ensure your models are generated by running Umbraco and navigating to Settings > Models Builder > Generate models. You can remove the following properties from your csproj
project file to enable the compilation of Razor views (which also ensures your views do not contain compilation errors and is a prerequisite for enabling Production
mode):
Fix any compilation errors you might get after this, e.g. if you accidentally referenced deleted models or properties. Running the application will still show the rendered content and you're now ready to optionally enable Production
mode on your production environment.
Ensure you have the <CopyRazorGenerateFilesToPublishDirectory>true</CopyRazorGenerateFilesToPublishDirectory>
property set in your csproj
project file, so Razor views are always copied to the publish directory. This is required by the CMS to display the contents in the backoffice, for Forms to lookup custom theme views and for Deploy to be able to compare schemas (otherwise you'll get schema mismatches).
Production mode
Use Production
mode to ensure your production environment is running optimally by disabling development features and validating whether specific settings are configured to their recommended production values.
This mode disables both in-memory ModelsBuilder generation (see Development mode) and Razor (cshtml) runtime compilation. Production mode requires you to compile your views at build/publish time and enforces the following settings for optimal performance/security:
The application is built/published in Release mode (with JIT optimization enabled), e.g. using
dotnet publish --configuration Release
;Umbraco:CMS:WebRouting:UmbracoApplicationUrl
is set to a valid URL;Umbraco:CMS:Global:UseHttps
is enabled;Umbraco:CMS:RuntimeMinification:CacheBuster
is set to a fixed cache buster likeVersion
orAppDomain
;Umbraco:CMS:ModelsBuilder:ModelsMode
is set toNothing
.
To compile your views at build/publish time, remove the <RazorCompileOnBuild>
and <RazorCompileOnPublish>
properties from your project file (see the Development mode section). If you don't, Umbraco can't find the templates and will return 404 (Page Not Found) errors.
The recommended approach to enable Production
mode is to update the appsettings.Production.json
file (or create one) with the following settings:
Although you can still edit document types and views (if not running from the published output), changes won't be picked up until you've rebuilt your project or republished the application.
Models won't be generated by ModelsBuilder (because the mode is set to Nothing
), requiring you to do all your changes while in Development
mode.
As Models Builder are set to Nothing
, the Models Builder dashboard is disabled in the backoffice of live environment.
Also, templates cannot be edited on live environment as runtime compilation is not enabled and is set to Production.
Also ensure the UmbracoApplicationUrl
is updated to the primary URL of your production environment, as this is used when sending emails (password reset, notifications, health check results, etc.) and the keep-alive task.
Customize/extend runtime mode validation
Validation of the above-mentioned settings is done when determining the runtime level during startup using the new IRuntimeModeValidationService
and when it fails, causes a BootFailedException
to be thrown. The default implementation gets all registered IRuntimeModeValidators
to do the validation, making it possible to remove default checks and/or add your own (inherit from RuntimeModeProductionValidatorBase
, if you only want to validate against the production runtime mode). The following validators are added by default:
JITOptimizerValidator
- Ensure the application is built/published in Release mode (with JIT optimization enabled) when in production runtime mode, e.g. usingdotnet publish --configuration Release
;UmbracoApplicationUrlValidator
- ensureUmbraco:CMS:WebRouting:UmbracoApplicationUrl
is configured when in production runtime mode;UseHttpsValidator
- ensureUmbraco:CMS:Global:UseHttps
is enabled when in production runtime mode;RuntimeMinificationValidator
- ensureUmbraco:CMS:RuntimeMinification:CacheBuster
is set to a fixed cache buster likeVersion
orAppDomain
when in production runtime mode;ModelsBuilderModeValidator
- ensureUmbraco:CMS:ModelsBuilder:ModelsMode
is not set toInMemoryAuto
when in development runtime mode and set toNothing
when in production runtime mode.
The following example removes the default UmbracoApplicationUrlValidator
and adds a new custom DisableElectionForSingleServerValidator
:
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