The first thing you'll want to do once you set up your Search site is fill out your global settings and your locale config, which live in the config > global_config.json file and config > locale_config.json file respectively.

These files come with all Search experiences and are where you specify things that are shared across all pages, like the experienceKey, sdkVersion, favicon, or Google Tag Manager (GTM) ID.

locale_config.json File

Updating the locale_config.json is required in order to get your experience working. Specifically, you will need to update the Experience Key property.

If you are building a single-language experience (which is most common, at least to start), you only need to specify the default locale and the experienceKey to get started. You can ignore the rest of the file unless you're ready to build multi-language experiences.

You can find this experience key by navigating to Search > Your Experience > General Settings. This is how the system knows which search configuration to use when running searches. By default, the system will use the configuration version pinned to the STAGING label in the Staging Environment (typically this will be the "Latest" version) and the version pinned to the PRODUCTION label in the Production Environment.

The locale config contains three main properties. Check out Multi-Language Search Frontend for more info on setting up these properties.

Here's an example of what this file looks like for a single language experience:

{
  "default": "en",
  "localeConfig": {
    "en": {
      // "fallback": [""], // allows you to specify locale fallbacks for this locale
      // "translationFile": "<filepath>.po", // the filepath for the translation file
      // "urlOverride": "", // provide an override for the url path for this locale if you want it to be different than specified in the urlFormat object
      "experienceKey": "answers" //  the unique key of your search configuration for this locale
    }
  },
  "urlFormat": {
    "baseLocale": "{locale}/{pageName}.{pageExt}",
    "default": "{pageName}.{pageExt}"
  }
}

global_config.json File

The global_config.json file allows you to specify properties that are shared across the pages and that are not specific to a locale, including things like the sdkVersion or favicon.

You can optionally choose to specify things like the API Key or Business ID, but if you don't specify these (which most people don't) they'll be automatically populated based on the account that you're in.

Here's an example of what this file looks like:

{
  "sdkVersion": "1.16", // The version of the Answers SDK to use
  // "token": "<REPLACE ME>", // The auth token to access the Search experience
  // "apiKey": "<REPLACE ME>", // The answers api key found on the experiences page. This will be provided automatically by the Yext CI system
  // "experienceVersion": "<REPLACE ME>", // the Answers Experience version to use for API requests. This will be provided automatically by the Yext CI system
  // "environment": "production", // The environment to run on for this Answers Experience. (i.e. 'production' or 'sandbox')
  // "cloudRegion": "us", // The cloud region to use for this Answers Experience. (i.e. 'us' or 'eu')
  // "cloudChoice": "multi", // The cloud provider to use for this Answers Experience. (i.e. 'multi' or 'gcp')
  // "businessId": "<REPLACE ME>", // The business ID of the account. This will be provided automatically by the Yext CI system
  // "initializeManually": true, // If true, the experience must be started by calling AnswersExperience.init() or AnswersExperienceFrame.init() for iframe integrations.
  // "useJWT": true, // Whether or not to enable JWT. If true, the apiKey will be hidden from the build output and the token must be specified through manual initialization.
  // "useGenerativeDirectAnswers": true, // Whether or not to use generative direct answers when applicable
  "sessionTrackingEnabled": true, // Whether or not session tracking is enabled for all pages
  "analyticsEventsEnabled": true, // Whether or not to submit user interaction analytics events
  "logo": "", // The link to the logo for open graph meta tag - og:image.
  "favicon": "",
  "googleTagManagerName": "dataLayer", // The name of your Google Tag Manager data layer
  "googleTagManagerId": "", // The container id associated with your Google Tag Manager container
  "googleAnalyticsId": "", // The tracking Id associated with your Google Analytics account
  "conversionTrackingEnabled": true // Whether or not conversion tracking is enabled for all pages
}