On May 7th, we hosted a valuable session on Metadata Best Practices with our own Distinguished Engineer Alexey Klimko. During this session, Alexey shared findings from recent engineering research into our SugarCloud and highlighted opportunities where our Developer community can help optimize the use of metadata for improved performance and functionality.
Session Takeaways
Alexey started by outlining the current state of Sugar metadata, which is file system based and relies on the Extension framework. The Extension framework relies on a lot of file I/O to concatenate files to form large PHP arrays. He explained the challenges Sugar faces in transitioning to a future services oriented model.
To help prepare for this evolution, Alexey shared practical examples of changes you can start making today. One of the key takeaways: Metadata should be declarative and static—your files should contain only data definitions, without any logic (ifs, loops, concatenations, array operations, etc). This is a crucial step toward enabling a more scalable and flexible architecture.
We recognize that making these changes isn’t always straightforward. There are current limitations in Sugar that may prevent some code from being refactored right away. We've also got parts of Sugar's core codebase that needs to be updated to support these new practices. We are committed to addressing these limitations and will be taking your feedback into account as we move forward.
To support you, we’ll be creating a dedicated space in DevClub where you can find examples, best practices, and guidance to help you modernize your metadata code.
What You Can Do Now
Start by reviewing your existing code using the examples we’ve provided. While some metadata code may not yet be "refactorable" due to limitations, we'll be addressing them in upcoming updates.
Evolving our metadata practices is essential to delivering a better product—for you and our customers. We need your help to make this transition as smooth and effective as possible.
Please share your feedback with me directly, or by submitting "ideas" through the Sugar portal.
Session Recording
Link to Recording.
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