Setting Up The AEM Content Advisor Integration

Before You Begin

Before you start, make sure you have:

An active Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service (AEM as a Cloud Service) subscription
Access to the Adobe Developer Console for your organization
An AEM administrator with access to:
- Your AEM Git repository
- Adobe Cloud Manager
Admin permissions in Knak
Dynamic Media enabled using either:
- OpenAPI
- Dynamic Media Classic (Scene7)

Note: Dynamic Media may require an additional Adobe license or cost. Knak requires Dynamic Media so your AEM assets have a public URL. This allows images to display correctly in emails without requiring someone to sign in to AEM. Contact your Adobe account team to confirm whether Dynamic Media is included in your current Adobe plan.

Setup Responsibilities

The setup process involves three different roles.

Role	Responsibility
Adobe	Provides the IMS Client ID and related credentials
AEM Administrator	Allow-lists the Client ID in each AEM environment
Knak Administrator	Configures the integration inside Knak

Important: This guide covers the AEM Content Advisor integration, which uses Adobe's native Content Advisor inside Knak.

If you are setting up the legacy AEM Assets integration, see Setting Up the Adobe Experience Manager Integration instead.

Step 1: Request Credentials from Adobe

Contact your Adobe account team and request provisioning for the AEM Content Advisor.

Adobe will provide the following values:

Value	Description	Example
IMS Client ID	Identifies the Content Advisor application	`aemcs-knak-contentadvisor`
IMS Organization ID	Your Adobe organization identifier	`XXXXXXXXXXXX@AdobeOrg`
Repository ID	The hostname of your AEM author environment	`author-pXXXXX-eXXXXX.adobeaemcloud.com`
IMS Scope	The default Content Advisor scopes are almost always correct; Adobe will tell you if anything custom is required	—

Important: Adobe must provision the IMS Client ID before the integration can authenticate.

Without it, the Content Advisor returns 403 Forbidden or Network Error messages.

Register Your Knak URLs

Tell Adobe the exact URL(s) where your users access Knak (e.g. https://enterprise.knak.io, plus any custom/white-label Knak domain).

Adobe must register these origins with the IMS Client ID. If they are not registered, authentication fails with a browser Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) error.

Step 2: Allow-List the Client ID in AEM

Your AEM administrator must allow-list the IMS Client ID in every environment.

For example:

Development
Stage
Production

⚠️ Skipping this step is the most common cause of 403 Forbidden errors.

Create the Configuration File

Clone the appropriate Git repository.
Create the following file: config/api.yaml

Replace <provided-clientId> with the value Adobe supplied.

 kind: "API"
  version: "1" 
  metadata:   
      envTypes: ["dev"]  # or ["stage"] / ["prod"] for other environments 
   data:                
    allowedClientIDs:    
      author:      
         - "<provided-clientId>"

Deploy the Configuration

Commit the changes.
Push the repository.
Open Adobe Cloud Manager.
Create a Config Pipeline for the repository and branch.
Run the pipeline.

After deployment finishes, the Client ID becomes available for that environment.

Important: Only the author entry is required.

The Content Advisor communicates with the author environment. Public assets are served from the delivery environment.

Find Your Repository

To access your Git repository:

Open your Adobe Cloud Manager program.
Navigate to Repositories.
Select Access Repo Info.
Copy the repository URL and credentials.
Clone the repository locally.
Add the YAML file.
Commit and push your changes.

For Adobe's reference, see Introduction to CI/CD Pipelines.

Step 3: Configure the AEM Content Advisor Integration in Knak

Open Knak.
Go to Admin.
Select Integrations.
Click Platforms.
Navigate to the AEM Content Advisor tile under the Digital Asset Management section
Click Connect.
Enter the credentials provided by Adobe. The other Content Advisor settings are optional. See Optional Content Advisor Settings below.
Leave Dynamic Media Delivery for the next step.
Click Create New Integration.

Step 4: Choose a Dynamic Media Delivery Option

The Dynamic Media Delivery setting determines how Knak builds public asset URLs.

OpenAPI (Recommended)

Choose OpenAPI if you use:

Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service
Adobe Assets Delivery OpenAPI

This is the correct option for most customers.

Scene7 (Dynamic Media Classic)

Choose Scene7 only if your organization delivers assets through Dynamic Media Classic.

Scene7 environments have:

A dedicated dashboard
Separate delivery domains

Not Sure Which Option to Choose?

Start with OpenAPI. If approved assets cannot load, ask your AEM administrator whether your organization uses Scene7.

Both delivery methods must be enabled in AEM before they can be used.

Step 5: Additional Content Advisor Settings (Optional)

These settings control how the Content Advisor looks and behaves. All of them are optional. If you leave a setting blank, Knak uses Adobe’s default.

Setting	What It Does	Example
Feature Set	Turns on Content Advisor features. Enter them as a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) array. This is a list in square brackets, with each item in quotes. Enter `[]` to turn off all optional features, including uploads.	`["upload", "content-fragments"]`
Disabled Feature Set	Turns off Content Advisor features. Enter them as a JSON array.	`["collections"]`
Path	Sets the AEM folder the Content Advisor opens to.	`/content/dam/marketing`
Root Path	Sets the highest AEM folder users can browse. Users cannot go above this folder.	`/content/dam`
Type	Sets the value Knak sends to the Content Advisor’s type property.	—
Filter Schema Source	Sets where the Content Advisor gets its filter settings. If blank, Knak uses `"custom"` when custom filters are set. Otherwise, it uses Adobe’s default.	`"hybrid-merge-deep"` or `"custom"`

Tip: Use Path and Root Path together to keep authors in approved folders. For example, open the Content Advisor in your marketing folder and stop users from browsing above /content/dam.

Step 6: Approve and Publish Assets

The Content Advisor displays all repository assets.

Knak only accepts assets that are:

Images
Approved
Published
Publicly accessible

Non-image files, such as PDFs or videos, cannot be inserted.

Scene7 Requirements

If you selected Scene7, every asset must also:

Sync successfully to Dynamic Media
Have a publish status of PublishComplete

Tip: Publish and approve your assets before authors begin building emails or landing pages. This ensures assets are available for selection in Knak. It also makes troubleshooting easier because unpublished assets can appear in the Content Advisor but cannot be inserted.

Step 7: Verify Network Requirements

Adobe's authentication services require HTTPS. Knak already uses HTTPS.

If your organization blocks external services, ask your IT team to allow:

experience.adobe.com — loads the Content Advisor JavaScript library
*.adobeaemcloud.com — your author and delivery tier hostnames (repository discovery, asset metadata, public URL delivery)
Adobe IMS authentication domains
- ims-na1.adobelogin.com
- auth.services.adobe.com

If your organization uses a Content Security Policy (CSP), verify these directives allow Adobe services:

script-src
connect-src
img-src
frame-src

Use the Integration

After setup, authors can insert AEM images anywhere Knak supports image uploads.

Open an email or landing page.
Open the image picker.
Select AEM Content Advisor.
Sign in using your Adobe ID.
Browse your repository.
Select an approved image.
Click Select.

Knak validates the asset before inserting it.

Insertion fails if the asset:

Is not an image
Is unpublished
Is not publicly accessible

Important: Each user must sign in to Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) using their own Adobe ID. The Content Advisor does not use shared integration credentials to display the AEM asset library.

Each user only sees the AEM environments and assets their Adobe account has permission to access.

Troubleshooting

AEM Content Advisor Does Not Appear or Shows a Blank Screen

The AEM Content Advisor may not load if third-party cookies are blocked or your Adobe session is not active.

Check Your Browser Cookie Settings

Open your browser's Privacy or Cookie settings.
Check whether third-party cookies are blocked.
Allow third-party cookies for Knak and Adobe services.
Return to Knak.
Refresh the builder.
Open the image picker and select AEM Content Advisor again.

The name and location of this setting varies by browser. If your organization manages your browser settings, contact your IT team for help.

Check Your Adobe Sign-In

If the Content Advisor is still blank:

Confirm that you are signed in to Adobe.
Return to the Knak builder.
Open the image picker.
Select AEM Content Advisor.
Sign in to Adobe if prompted.
Select the correct Adobe profile if you have more than one.
Refresh the builder after authentication completes.
Open the AEM Content Advisor again.

If the Content Advisor still does not load, ask your Adobe administrator to confirm that your Adobe user has permission to access the required AEM environment and assets.

Try a Private Browsing Window

You can also test the integration in a private or Incognito browsing window.
Make sure third-party cookies are allowed in the private window. Some browsers block them by default.
Sign in to both Knak and Adobe in the private window. Open the builder and try the AEM Content Advisor again.

If the Content Advisor works in the private window, your regular browser session may have a cookie, browser extension, or stored sign-in issue.

"Network Error" or "403 Forbidden" when opening the Content Advisor

The IMS Client ID has not been allow-listed in your AEM environment.

To resolve this issue:

Verify that config/api.yaml exists in the correct Git branch.
Confirm the IMS Client ID matches the value provided by Adobe exactly.
Make sure the configuration was committed and pushed successfully.
Verify that the Config Pipeline completed successfully for the environment you are testing.
If you use multiple environments (development, stage, or production), ensure the Client ID has been allow-listed in each one.

"Authentication failed. Please try again."

Adobe Identity Management Services (IMS) rejected the authentication request.

To resolve this issue:

Verify that the IMS Client ID and IMS Organization ID in Knak exactly match the values provided by Adobe.
Remove any leading or trailing spaces from the values.
Confirm you are signing in with an Adobe ID that belongs to the same Adobe organization.
If you entered a custom IMS Scope, remove it unless Adobe specifically instructed you to use one.

"This asset is not available for public delivery. Ensure it is approved and published in AEM."

The selected asset is not publicly available through the configured delivery method.

To resolve this issue:

Verify the asset has completed your organization's approval and publishing workflow.
Confirm the asset is publicly accessible using its delivery URL.
If you are using OpenAPI delivery, verify that the Assets Delivery endpoint is enabled in your AEM environment.

"This asset is not available via Scene7." or "The Scene7 delivery URL is not reachable."

The asset is not available through Dynamic Media Classic (Scene7).

To resolve this issue:

Verify the asset has synchronized to Dynamic Media.
Confirm the asset's publish status is PublishComplete.
Verify that your organization uses Scene7 for asset delivery.
If your organization does not use Scene7, change the Dynamic Media Delivery setting in Knak to OpenAPI.

"Failed to load AEM Content Advisor. Please try again."

The Adobe-hosted Content Advisor could not load.

To resolve this issue:

Open your browser's developer tools and look for blocked requests to experience.adobe.com.
If your organization uses a firewall, proxy, or Content Security Policy (CSP), ask your IT team to allow the Adobe domains listed in the HTTPS and Network Requirements section.

Unpublished or non-image assets appear in the Content Advisor

This behavior is expected. Adobe's Content Advisor displays all assets in the repository. Knak validates assets when you select them.

To insert an asset successfully, it must:

Be an image.
Be approved.
Be published.
Have a publicly accessible delivery URL.

To make browsing easier, organize approved images into dedicated folders within AEM.

Need more help? Contact support via live chat within Knak using the chat bubble in the bottom right corner or email support@knak.com.