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How-To Guide: Populating Liferay Experience Cloud (SaaS) using AICA

This guide walk you through how to run the AI Commerce Accelerator (AICA) seeder locally on your laptop (or inside a local LDM container) and target a remote Liferay Experience Cloud (SaaS) environment to generate and populate a highly detailed, styled B2B commerce storefront.

Because AICA’s React Frontend proxies all API traffic server-to-server through our Node.js Microservice, this flow completely bypasses browser CORS constraints, making it extremely reliable for targeting remote cloud endpoints securely.

Step 1: Configure the Remote Liferay SaaS Instance

Before connecting AICA, you must configure two standard settings inside your remote Liferay SaaS instance:

1. Enable the Page Management API Feature Flag (LPD-35443)

This flag is required to allow AICA to programmatically manage pages and layout templates via Headless APIs using External Reference Codes (ERCs).

  1. Log into your Liferay SaaS instance as an Administrator.
  2. Navigate to Global Menu (top-right grid) ➔ Control Panel ➔ System Settings.
  3. Under the Platform category, click on Feature Flags.
  4. In the Beta tab, locate LPD-35443 (Page Management API) and toggle it to Active.
  5. Click Save.

2. Create an OAuth2 Headless Server Profile

Create the secure client credentials required by our SDK to authorize write requests.

  1. Navigate to Control Panel ➔ Security ➔ OAuth 2 Administration.
  2. Click the blue Add (+) button.
  3. Input a name (e.g., AICA Remote Seeder) and select Client Credentials as the Flow.
  4. Click Save.
  5. Open the newly created application, copy the Client ID and Client Secret.
  6. Go to the Scopes tab, select Liferay.Headless.Site.everything (and any required Commerce/Object scopes), and click Save.

Step 2: Establish Bi-Directional Connectivity with lfr-tunnel (Crucial)

While AICA can make outbound API calls from your laptop to Liferay SaaS to seed data natively, Liferay SaaS cannot automatically communicate inbound back to your local laptop to fetch custom element Javascript (the React UI) or trigger server-to-server webhook actions (like Object triggers hitting the Node.js microservice).

To enable full bi-directional integration where Liferay SaaS can securely route traffic to your local development environment, you MUST utilize lfr-tunnel.

lfr-tunnel acts as a secure, public proxy that exposes your local localhost:5173 (Frontend) and localhost:3001 (Microservice) ports to public internet URLs (e.g., https://my-aica-api.lfr.cool) that Liferay SaaS can resolve.

Activating the Tunnel

1. Authentication Requirement (lfr-demo.se) The recommended and most robust way to start using the tunnel is to register for an account at the lfr-demo.se Portal. Once your account is approved and created, the portal will provide you with the correct installation links, operating instructions, and guide you through generating the specific authentication token your client needs to tunnel traffic through the server.

2. If using LDM (Liferay Docker Manager): LDM natively orchestrates the tunnel for you. Ensure your LDM instance is actively running the tunnel container so that your local ports are securely exposed to the Liferay cloud environment.

3. If running Standalone: If you are running AICA natively on Node.js without Docker, you will need to manually download and execute lfr-tunnel alongside your local Node.js servers.

  • Installation & Execution: Follow the precise instructions provided to you inside your approved lfr-demo.se portal dashboard. This will walk you through downloading the correct binary from the lfr-tunnel GitHub repository and passing your secure token.

Step 3: Launch the Local AICA Seeder

You can run the seeder panel locally either via Liferay Docker Manager (LDM) or as a Standalone Node.js application.

LDM is the fastest way to spin up the seeder UI and microservice containers in under 10 seconds:

# 1. Spin up the AICA Microservice and Frontend containers locally (using no local Liferay DB)
ldm launch aica --no-db --no-liferay

# 2. Open the local dashboard in your browser
open http://aica.local

Option B: Launching Standalone (Zero-Docker)

If you don't have Docker installed, you can boot the Node.js services directly on your laptop:

# 1. Start the Microservice (in one terminal tab)
cd client-extensions/ai-commerce-accelerator-microservice
npm start

# 2. Start the React Frontend (in a second terminal tab)
cd ../ai-commerce-accelerator-frontend
npm run dev

Step 4: Connect and Seed the SaaS Storefront

Once your local dashboard is loaded in your browser (http://aica.local or http://localhost:5173, the Vite dev server default — the microservice itself runs on :3001):

  1. Enter Connection Details: In the Connection & Authentication card, enter:
  2. Liferay URL: The full HTTPS URL of your SaaS instance (e.g., https://my-saas-store.liferay.cloud).
  3. Client ID: Paste the Client ID from Step 1.
  4. Client Secret: Paste the Client Secret from Step 1.
  5. Test Connection: Click Test Connection.
  6. AICA will securely authenticate, retrieve your SaaS instance's metadata, and light up the Liferay Connected indicator.
  7. Handle Empty Environments (Auto-Bootstrap):
  8. If your SaaS instance is completely fresh and has no existing catalogs or channels, AICA will display our "No channels found" warning.
  9. Simply click the blue [ Auto-Create Channel ] button directly from the seeder panel.
  10. AICA will programmatically provision a clean B2B channel (AI Commerce Storefront) on your SaaS instance, refresh the dropdown, and select it instantly!
  11. Choose Your Strategy:
  12. Configure your AI generation settings (Products count, geographic branding, specifications, and pricing rules).
  13. Fire the Seeder: Click [ Generate Dataset ].

Step 5: Monitor and Verify

  1. Live Monitoring: Watch the Live Console and Progress Monitor on your local dashboard. You will see real-time updates and WebSocket logs as the local Node.js seeder translates AI payloads and pushes them into your remote SaaS cloud instance.
  2. SaaS Verification: Once completed, open your remote Liferay SaaS storefront. You will find:
  3. A fully seeded product catalog with prices, specifications, and stock levels.
  4. Fully constructed business accounts, addresses, and transaction histories.
  5. The custom Dashboard and Data Generator pages, fully styled in Modern Fresh blue!

Last Reviewed: 2026-09-04