In this option, the Assembler is invoked early in the page rendering process as part of the ATG request handling pipeline. This option is appropriate when the bulk of a page’s content is served by the Assembler and this guide refers to these pages as “Assembler-driven pages.”

Assembler-driven pages are generally those pages that benefit greatly from increased merchandiser control. For example, a home page is a good candidate to be Assembler-driven because merchandisers want to customize their site’s home page based on the season, a current sale, or a customer’s profile. A search results page is also a good candidate because merchandisers may want to control the order of search results, specify special brand landing pages for particular searches, and so on. Endeca’s Experience Manager tool, which works hand in hand with the Assembler API, is designed to facilitate increased merchandiser control, therefore pages that need a high level of merchandiser control are best served through the Assembler API/Experience Manager combination.