CrestApps Recipes

CrestApps Recipes adds JSON-Schema support for Orchard Core recipes.

It exposes strongly-typed, per-step JSON schema definitions (one schema per recipe step) that match how Orchard Core actually parses and executes each step (i.e., the classes inheriting from NamedRecipeStepHandler).

This is especially useful when recipes are generated programmatically (e.g., by AI agents) because it enables:

• Validation before execution: catch invalid or incomplete recipe payloads early.
• Better AI guidance: provide the model with an explicit contract for each step.
• Safer automation: reduce trial-and-error imports and unpredictable runtime failures.

At runtime the feature can compose all known step schemas into a single "recipe" schema for an object with a steps array.

Creating a Recipe Step

To define a recipe step, implement the IRecipeStep interface and register your implementation as a service.

Here's an example of a recipe step for a Settings step. This step requires a JSON object with a "name" property set to "settings" and allows any other properties of any type.

internal sealed class SettingsSchemaStep : IRecipeStep
{
    private JsonSchema _schema;

    public string Name => "Settings";

    public ValueTask<JsonSchema> GetSchemaAsync()
    {
        if (_schema != null)
        {
            return new ValueTask<JsonSchema>(_schema);
        }

        var builder = new JsonSchemaBuilder();
        builder
            .Type(SchemaValueType.Object)
            .Properties(
                ("name", new JsonSchemaBuilder()
                    .Type(SchemaValueType.String)
                    .Const("settings")
                )
            )
            .Required("name")
            .MinProperties(2) // at least "name" plus one other property
            .AdditionalProperties(true); // allow any other properties of any type

        _schema = builder.Build();

        return new ValueTask<JsonSchema>(_schema);
    }
}

Registering Your Recipe Step

Register your implementation as a scoped service in your Orchard Core module or startup:

services.AddScoped<IRecipeStep, SettingsSchemaStep>();

Using Recipe Steps

• Retrieve available recipe steps: Use the RecipeSchemaService to get a list of all registered recipe step names.
• Validate and execute recipes: Use the RecipeExecutionService alongside the step schemas to validate a recipe payload before importing.

How schemas stay accurate

Orchard Core recipe steps are implemented by classes inheriting from NamedRecipeStepHandler. Each handler converts the incoming JSON into a specific model (for example ContentStepModel) and then processes it.

This module mirrors that contract by ensuring each IRecipeStep schema includes the known properties that Orchard Core expects (including correct property names and types).