Develop widgets with Sitefinity MCP server

Using the Sitefinity MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for generating ASP.NET Core and Next.js widgets, you use the power of Large Language Models (LLM) to quickly and easily generate new widgets for your decoupled renderer project.

This way, you can start enriching your project based on decoupled renderers with new widgets immediately.

First, you describe to an LLM your business needs. For example – create a carousel widget with image, title, and two buttons. Then, using the MCP protocol, the Sitefinity MCP server generates all the required code and configurations in your editor.

This feature enables faster experimentation and iteration, faster team scaling, and enables new developers to contribute from day one.

The Sitefinity MCP server enriches the IDEs you are using with specific knowledge about Sitefinity CMS application. Therefore, the code and configuration it creates align with Sitefinity’s widget structure, naming conventions, and rendering logic. It follows the best practices and feels natural to the underlying platform.

In the included example, you will learn how to configure the Sitefinity MCP Server in your editor of choice and create a Next.js widget using prompting.

This sample guides you to configure your development environment using VS Code to start building Sitefinity widgets with the hosted Sitefinity MCP server.
Perform the following:

1. Open your decoupled renderer project in VS Code. Both ASP.NET Core and Next.js are supported.
2. Add the Sitefinity MCP Server:
   1. Open the Command Palette (under Windows, press Ctrl+Shift+P)
   2. In the Command palette, enter MCP:Add Server…
   3. Select HTTP (HTTP or Server-Sent Events)
   4. For a MCP Server URL, enter the URL of the corresponding Sitefinity MCP Server.
      For developing with Next.js, enter https://mcp.sitefinity.cloud/nextjs-widgets/mcp.
      For developing with ASP.NET Core, enter https://mcp.sitefinity.cloud/nextcore-widgets.
   5. Set a name of your choice.
      For example, mcp-widgets.
   6. Select Workspace Settings
      The mcp.json file opens in a new tab. It contains the MCP server URL you have set in a previous step.
   7. In the mcp-nextjs-widgets object, add the headers object, containing the x-sitefinity-url property. You set the value of this property to the URL of the API endpoint exposed by your Sitefinity CMS instance.
      For example, if your Sitefinity is hosted on www.example.com, the JSON should look like the following.
      For Next.js:
      For ASP.NET Core:
      
3. Start the MCP server connection:
   1. Open the Command Palette (under Windows, press Ctrl+Shift+P).
   2. Select your MCP server that you configured in Step 2.
   3. Select Start Server.
      NOTE: If the server has already been started, the Start Server option is unavailable.
   4. To open Copilot Chat, click View » Chat.
   5. To select Agent mode, in the lower-left corner of the chat bubble, click the Select mode drop-down and select Agent.
   6. Optionally, configure the used LLM, using the middle drop-down with the name of the currently selected LLM in the chat bubble.
      
      RECOMMENDATION: For the best results, we recommend using Anthropic Sonnet 3.7 or 4, or Google Gemini 2.5 Pro.

RESULT: Your Sitefinity MCP Server is ready. You can start prompting it and generate new widgets.

To build a carousel widget, perform the following:

1. In the Chat bubble, enter Create a carousel widget with an image, title, and two buttons.
2. When Copilot asks you for confirmation, use the drop-down to select one of the Allow options, then press Continue.
   If you intend to use the Sitefinity MCP Server multiple times in your project, we recommend using the Allow in this workspace option.
3. In the Chat bubble, click Keep.
4. Review the generated code.
   
   IMPORTANT: Sitefinity MCP Server relies on an LLM to generate code. Because LLMs can generate unreliable code, you should always check their output before using it in a production project.
5. Navigate to your Sitefinity CMS backend using your local decoupled renderer as a proxy.
6. Open or create a new page, based on a renderer template that uses the same technology as the one you used to create the widget.
   For example, if you used Sitefinity MCP Server to create a widget based on ASP.NET Core, you must use an ASP.NET Core-based renderer and edit ASP.NET Core pages to place the newly generated widget.
7. Place the newly generated widget.