-Cool Tools for Conscia DXO Engineers

This blog post describes some useful tools for software engineers working with the Digital Experience Orchestration (DXO) SaaS platform from Conscia, especially those working with Microsoft Windows and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). If you have suggestions for additional tools or related tools for other platforms, please comment on this blog post.

Update 15.Dec.2025: After years of frustration with WordPress, I am finally abandoning this blog. The content will likely stay here for some time, but new content will appear here:

• jpw3.com

Conscia Debugger and Visualizer

Start by accessing Conscia itself, typically in a sandbox instance of Conscia:

• https://admin-staging.conscia.ai/

If you do not have access, contact Conscia:

• https://conscia.ai/contact/

In the list at the top of the page, click your instance, and then click DX Studio.

As I use each area of the UI (Components, Templates, Debugger, and so forth), I like to open new tabs for each major area. So, whether using the home page that lists six of the major areas or using the top nav that includes all of them, I right-click and select the option to open a new tab.

Within the Conscia UI, one of the most useful features for engineers is the debugger, which includes the visualizer. You can use the debugger to invoke one or more process component(s) or a single process template. In either case, the Execution Timeline shows whether Conscia invoked each of the relevant components in sequence or in parallel, and in what order, and execution time for each, with green and red to indicate success or failure. The Debug Response tab provides useful information for evaluating the result, where the Actual Response tab shows only the actual JSON that Conscia would have returned to the client. The Visualizer tab provides an image that describes the orchestration process.

Postman

Postman is a lot of things, but one of them is a client application that lets you invoke web services, which is useful for testing. Apparently, there’s also a browser-based version that I have not tried.

• https://www.postman.com/

cURL

The cURL command line tool lets you invoke web services, which is useful for testing.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CURL

Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE). You can use it as a text editor. Unless you’re Chuck Norris, it’s better than vi. And it sure beats Windows Notepad.

• https://code.visualstudio.com/

WinMerge

WinMerge is a Windows client that lets you compare text. It’s not as pretty as BeyondCompare, but hey; it’s free. You can use WinMerge to compare JSON, such as to confirm the effects of digital experience personalization logic.

• https://winmerge.org/

JSON Diff provides a browser-based alternative for evaluating differences in JSON, but it seems to re-order the data:

• https://jsondiff.com/

Windows Terminal/WSL/Bash

If you’re using Windows, you should be using the Bash shell rather than the Windows command prompt. If you’re using the bash shell, then you should be using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), which is like running Linux within Windows. Even if you’re not using WSL or even bash, you should be using Windows Terminal, which is a Windows client for text-based user interfaces such as Bash. I used to blog about WSL and Windows Terminal and bash at wslguy.net.

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/terminal/install
• https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/about
• https://wslguy.net

WireMock/QuickMocker

Sometimes, you want to start testing an endpoint that doesn’t exist, or that you can’t access, or that you don’t know exactly how to invoke. You can use WireMock, QuickMocker, or a variety of other solutions to fake it. The free edition of WireMock has some significant limitations and the Enterprise edition is ridiculously expensive for my purposes. QuickMocker is somewhere in between.

• https://app.wiremock.cloud/
• https://quickmocker.com/

There are many alternatives. Of course, you can also use the DXO itself to mock APIs, which is what I actually do.

• https://docs.conscia.ai/solutions/dx-engine/recipes/mocking-webservices-with-listeners
• https://docs.conscia.ai/solutions/dx-engine/recipes/mocking-orchestration-components

AST explorer

AST explorer is a browser-based tool that validates JavaScript snippets.

• https://astexplorer.net/

Fidler/Wireshark

To debug certain networking issues that are otherwise hidden, you can use a web debugging proxy/network protocol analyzer such as Fidler or Wireshark. To be honest, these are not really within my skillset, but I used them when I must.

• https://www.telerik.com/fiddler
• https://www.wireshark.org/

ngrok

Tools like ngrok are useful for things like testing webhook catchers on development workstations that are behind firewalls. For example, you might not want to expose your local workstation to the Internet while using it to develop an application that processes webhooks from other systems. You can use the ngrok command line tool as a reverse proxy to create an endpoint on the public Internet that forwards webhook calls to your local workstation.

• https://ngrok.com/

Note that QuickMocker appears to have a solution for doing something similar from within a browser, but I haven’t tried it.

• https://quickmocker.com/faq#forwarder

REPL JS and JS Fiddle

REPL (Read-Eval-Print-Loop) JS is a browser-based tool that evaluates JavaScript as you type.

• https://repljs.com/

JS Fiddle does something similar:

• https://jsfiddle.net/

JSON Lint

JSON Lint is a browser-based tool that validates and formats JSON.

• https://jsonlint.com/

StackOverflow

You can use the StackOverflow developer forums to research Conscia and to ask and answer questions. Be sure to tag anything relevant to Conscia with the #conscia label.

• https://stackoverflow.com/

Worthy Mentions

Maybe these aren’t very useful relevant to Conscia, but I think it’s still worth mentioning the Microsoft Sysinternals utilities from Microsoft, specifically:

• Autoruns: control what runs at startup/logon
• DiskMon: Monitor disk activity
• Process Explorer: A great replacement for Windows Task Manager
• Handle: What process has files open
• Bginfo: Create desktop backgrounds that contain system information
• ZoomIt: Zoom in on the display
• ListDLLs: What DLLs does a process open
• Process Monitor: Monitor process activity including thread stacks, file system access, and Windows registry interactions
• PsKill: Kill processes from the command line

See:

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/

FileLocator Pro and the free variant named Agent Ransack from Mythicsoft are useful for finding files on your local system, although WSL is also super handy for finding files.

• https://www.mythicsoft.com/filelocatorpro/
• https://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/

Visual Studio .NET is an IDE for .NET. Yep, I still think that C# with .NET and ASP.NET Razor Pages is the best way to build the static side of websites, especially using the deliverystack project that I developed some time ago but need to update to work with Conscia.

• https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/features/net-development/
• https://github.com/deliverystack/deliverystack

PureText lets you use a keyboard shortcut to paste text without formatting.

• https://stevemiller.net/puretext/

I have a bad habit of starting Windows Notepad when I want an actual text editor. Windows sometimes opens Notepad when I want an actual text editor. I use NotepadReplacer to force Windows to open Visual Studio Code rather than Notepad.

• https://www.binaryfortress.com/NotepadReplacer/Download/

Finally, a little shameless plug for wink, which launches Windows features from the command line. I developed wink while I was trying to learn rust.

• https://github.com/deliverystack/wink

Oh yeah, and you probably want at least a headless CMS, a headless search engine, a CRM or CDP, and potentially a headless commerce engine. For political reasons I cannot disclose my preferences…