CrestApps Recipes

Feature Name	CrestApps Recipes
Feature ID	CrestApps.OrchardCore.Recipes

Provides recipe steps for CrestApps modules.

Note

This feature is enabled by dependency only.

Overview

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.

Exporting recipe step schemas for AI skills

This repository also includes a temporary exporter utility for synchronizing the runtime recipe schemas into the Orchard Core AgentSkills repository:

dotnet run --project .\tests\CrestApps.OrchardCore.RecipeSchemaExporter\CrestApps.OrchardCore.RecipeSchemaExporter.csproj --framework net10.0 --no-build

By default, the tool first locates the CrestApps.OrchardCore repository root by walking up from the running process directory until it finds a marker such as global.json, NuGet.config, or CrestApps.OrchardCore.slnx. It then writes:

• one <step>.schema.json file per IRecipeStep
• recipe.schema.json for the root recipe contract
• index.json for step-to-file lookup

to the sibling AgentSkills repository path:

..\CrestApps.AgentSkills\src\CrestApps.AgentSkills\orchardcore\orchardcore-recipes\references\recipe-schemas

This keeps the orchardcore-recipes skill aligned with the runtime JSON schema definitions used by RecipeSchemaService.

If the sibling CrestApps.AgentSkills repository is missing, the exporter now fails with an actionable DirectoryNotFoundException that tells contributors to clone https://github.com/CrestApps/CrestApps.AgentSkills.git next to CrestApps.OrchardCore, or to pass an explicit output directory manually.

The ReplaceContentDefinition step now reuses the same expanded ContentTypes and ContentParts schema structure as ContentDefinition, so AI-generated replacement steps can rely on the same predefined nested shape instead of loose object arrays.

The exported set now also covers Orchard Core's built-in settings, identity, and localization recipe steps that were previously missing from CrestApps, including Users, custom-user-settings, AzureADSettings, MicrosoftAccountSettings, FacebookCoreSettings, FacebookLoginSettings, GitHubAuthenticationSettings, TwitterSettings, OpenIdApplication, OpenIdClientSettings, OpenIdScope, OpenIdServerSettings, OpenIdValidationSettings, Translations, and DynamicDataTranslations.

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).