Unable to register custom Controllers and Views in decoupled CMS setup (2.1.7)

[adrianocroce22]

Hi everyone 👋

I'm working with Orchard Core 2.1.7 and trying to build a decoupled CMS setup, where Orchard handles content/backend and I provide a custom frontend using my own MVC controllers and Razor views.

My setup is based on the standard OrchardCore.Application.Cms.Core.Targets package.
Here’s my Program.cs:

public class Program
{
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

        builder.Services.AddOrchardCms();

        var app = builder.Build();

        app.UseStaticFiles();
        app.UseOrchardCore();

        app.Run();
    }
}

And this is my .csproj:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>net8.0</TargetFramework>
    <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="OrchardCore.Application.Cms.Core.Targets" Version="2.1.7" />
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>

Expected
I'd like to be able to:

Add my own frontend MVC controllers and views

Let Orchard handle the admin/backend (on /admin)

Serve frontend pages like /, /about, etc. using my own controller/view logic

Is there an additional step or configuration required to enable MVC routing in a decoupled Orchard CMS project?
Thanks in advance for your help 🙏

[hishamco]

Just add your controller like we did in normal ASP.NET Core apps, then you can decorate it with the [Route]

[adrianocroce22]

Thank you so much for the help! 🙏. It all worked perfectly! Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction.

[hishamco]

Happy to hear that