Guide 01 · Developer docs

Choosing how to build

Decide where the pages of a Core dna site are composed before writing code: on the platform, in your own application, or on the platform with a few pieces filled in by the browser. The decision tree, each shape in depth, multi-brand and languages, and a table and case studies to make the call.

L2

Unit 05 of 06 6 pages

Multi-brand and multi-language

Updated 23/10/2026 01:47

Serving several brands, regions or languages from one codebase: the structural choice between hostnames and sites, then the template, token, language and caching techniques that keep one set of files maintainable.

Start with the structural decision, several hostnames on one site or a site per brand, because it decides what the brands share and is expensive to reverse. The three pages after it are the techniques that let one codebase serve every brand: override folders with a fallback, design tokens selected by one attribute, and the discipline that keeps layouts and components shared. They build on one brand key, worked out once from the hostname, so read them in order.

Languages come next, because their mechanisms overlap with the brand ones: translations are records linked to each other, and the URL convention is the project's choice. The unit closes with region, where the question is how to vary content without splitting the page cache. Read the first page before any other.

In this unit

Read in order

01 Several hostnames on one site, or several sites The first multi-brand decision is structural: serve every brand from one site with several hostnames, or give each brand a site of its own. What each arrangement shares, and the questions that decide it. 02 Per-brand template folders Keep one template set and put each brand's differences in a folder of its own, used only where the brand differs. The folder convention, the value that names the brand, and the fallback that keeps a brand without an override working. 03 Per-brand design tokens Theme every brand from CSS custom properties so one build serves them all. How a page selects its brand's token set with one attribute, and how per-brand values in site data are keyed when several hostnames share a site. 04 Keeping components shared across brands A layout or component shared by several brands may differ between them only through tokens and attributes. Why brand checks inside shared templates cost more with every brand, how to compute brand values once, and the question to ask in review. 05 Languages and the language switcher Each translation is a record of its own, linked to its source. Which records carry language versions, how to choose language-aware URLs, a switcher that leads to the same content in the other language, and how translation helpers differ by engine. 06 Content by region, without splitting the cache Showing different content by region while the page cache keeps working. What a cached page is keyed on, region by hostname or path, region by a declared parameter, and the browser-then-fragment pattern a production site uses.