Experience Cloud Guest Access
This skill activates when a practitioner needs to design, configure, or troubleshoot public-facing pages in an Experience Cloud site — pages reachable by unauthenticated visitors. It covers the one-guest-user-profile-per-site model, how to configure page access in Experience Builder, what object and field permissions the guest profile needs, and how explicit sharing rules govern which records appear on public pages.
Before Starting
Gather this context before working on anything in this domain:
- Identify the site template: LWR (Lightning Web Runtime), Aura (Community), or Microsite. Page access configuration steps differ slightly across templates.
- Confirm the org is on Spring '21 or later. The Secure Guest User Record Access toggle became mandatory in Spring '21 and changes how guest record visibility works — any site designed before this release may need sharing rule restructuring.
- Know which pages must be public and which should require login. Page-level access is set in Experience Builder per page; this is the primary mechanism for controlling unauthenticated access.
- Confirm whether any public pages require guests to submit records (e.g., contact forms, case deflection). Guest Create permissions on a profile are different from Read-only object access.
Questions to Ask Before Configuring
Ask these before opening Experience Builder. Guest access has six independent gates, and every one of these questions decides the value of one of them. An agent that skips them produces a site that deploys cleanly and either shows nothing or shows too much.
| Ask | Why it matters | What a good answer adds |
|---|
| "Route by route, which pages are public and which require login — including the ones nobody mentioned?" | pageAccess defaults to UseParent, and an unclassified route inherits whatever the site does later | A per-route classification, with zero UseParent values left in the bundle |
| "Which objects and which named fields does each public page actually render?" | The guest profile is the site-wide FLS boundary; anything you add for one page is readable from every page | The exact objectPermissions and fieldPermissions list, and the fields deliberately excluded |
| "Which records of those objects belong in public, and what field distinguishes them?" | External OWD stays Private; the criteria on the guest sharing rule is the whole release policy | The criteriaItems for sharingGuestRules, and a rule that survives new records being created |
| "Can a visitor submit anything — a case, a form, a registration?" | Create is the only write a guest should ever have, and it drags siteGuestRecordDefaultOwner in with it | A create-only object list plus the named integration user that will own those records |
| "Who owns the records a guest creates today, and who should?" | Without an explicit owner the guest user itself owns them, and the org-level fallback is deprecated in API 63.0+ | siteGuestRecordDefaultOwner set in the same deploy as allowCreate, not afterwards |
| "Do guests get files, Chatter, or member visibility on this site?" | Three Network switches, independent of both profile and sharing — and one of them turns itself on | Explicit false values, plus a post-publish re-retrieve to confirm they held |
| "Should these public pages be indexed by search engines?" | Public and indexed are separate decisions; robotsTxtPage is a page you author, and an absent one is not a restrictive policy | A crawl decision made before launch rather than a de-indexing project after |
What a proper configuration adds over just setting a page to Public: the six gates agree with each other, the guest profile grants exactly the fields on screen and nothing a future page might query, only the intended records are released, and any record a visitor creates lands with an owner someone manages.
Core Concepts
One Guest User Profile Per Site
Each Experience Cloud site has exactly one guest user profile, generated automatically when the site is created. This profile controls all unauthenticated access for every public page on that site. It cannot be deleted or shared with another site — if you have three sites, you have three independent guest profiles.
The guest profile lives at Setup > Digital Experiences > All Sites > [Site] > Workspaces > Administration > Guest User Profile. Changes to the profile take effect for all public pages on that site immediately.
Page-Level Access in Experience Builder
Experience Builder controls whether an individual page is accessible to guests or requires login. The setting lives on each page under Page Properties > Page Access:
- Public — the page is accessible without login; the guest user profile governs what data loads.
- Requires Login — unauthenticated visitors are redirected to the login page.
This is the first gate. Even if the guest profile has object Read access, a page set to "Requires Login" will not render for unauthenticated visitors. The most common configuration mistake is setting the page to Public but neglecting to configure the guest profile, resulting in empty components on the page.
Object and Field Permissions for Public Data
The guest user profile must explicitly grant Read access to any object whose records a public page displays. The principle is least-privilege:
- Grant Read on the specific objects the page needs (e.g., Knowledge__kav for a help center, Product2 for a catalog).
- Never grant Create, Edit, Delete, View All, or Modify All unless the page has a form submission use case that strictly requires Create.
- Grant field-level Read access for only the fields the page components actually display. Unused fields on the guest profile are a latent data exposure risk.
External OWD and Explicit Sharing Rules for Public Records
For objects where external OWD is Private, guest users see zero records regardless of page or profile configuration. To expose specific records publicly:
- Set external OWD to Private (recommended default — least privilege).
- Create Guest User Sharing Rules (Setup > Sharing Settings > Guest User Sharing Rules for [Site]) that grant Read access to the specific records the page should display.
- These rules evaluate against criteria or owner-based conditions, letting you expose only the records that belong on a public page (e.g., Published Knowledge articles, Featured Products).
If you set external OWD to Public Read Only, all records of that object become readable by every guest user on every site — which is almost never the right choice for custom objects.
API Settings on the Guest Profile
Two settings on the guest profile must stay disabled for any public site:
- API Enabled — allows the guest user to make direct API calls. Disable unless specifically required.
- Allow guest users to access public APIs — a site-level setting in Administration > Preferences. Disable unless the site hosts a Force.com Site that needs REST endpoint access.
Leaving these enabled expands the attack surface of the public site beyond the pages you designed.
Common Patterns
Public Knowledge Base Page
When to use: A help center or support site where Knowledge articles should be readable without login.
How it works:
- Set each Knowledge article page to Public in Experience Builder Page Properties.
- On the guest user profile, grant Read on Knowledge object and Read on the fields displayed (Title, Summary, Body, Article Number).
- Set external OWD for Knowledge to Public Read Only OR keep it Private and create a Guest User Sharing Rule based on the Publication Status = Online criteria.
- Confirm that "Allow guest users to access public APIs" is OFF in Site Preferences.
Why not the alternative: Granting View All on Knowledge to bypass OWD exposes draft and archived articles to guests. The sharing rule approach lets you surface only Published/Online records.
Public Product Catalog Without Login
When to use: An e-commerce or partner site where Product records should be visible to unauthenticated visitors browsing before they register.
How it works:
- Set product catalog and product detail pages to Public in Experience Builder.
- On the guest profile, grant Read on Product2, Pricebook2, and PricebookEntry for the fields shown on the page.
- Keep external OWD on Product2 at Public Read Only (Product2 is a Salesforce object with no sensitive owner data — broadly readable is acceptable).
- Do not grant Read on custom objects related to pricing or account-specific discounts — those should be members-only pages.
- Test in an incognito browser before publishing; confirm only intended Product fields render.
Why not the alternative: Adding the product object to a page that requires login defeats the purpose of unauthenticated browsing. The combination of page-level Public access plus guest profile Read gives clean separation from authenticated catalog features.
Decision Guidance
| Situation | Recommended Approach | Reason |
|---|
| Page must be visible to visitors without an account | Set Page Access = Public in Experience Builder, configure guest profile | Page-level access is the primary control gate |
| Object records must appear on a public page but external OWD is Private | Create Guest User Sharing Rules (criteria-based) | Sharing rules selectively expose only matching records |
| Object records must appear on a public page, external OWD is Public Read Only | Grant Read on guest profile; no sharing rules needed | Public OWD makes all records readable to guests |
| Guest needs to submit a form (case deflection, contact us) | Grant Create-only on the target object in guest profile | Never grant Edit or Delete for form submissions |
| Mix of public and members-only pages on the same site | Set each page individually in Experience Builder | Page access is per-page, not per-site |
| Unsure which records a public page currently exposes | Run as guest user in incognito, review guest profile permissions and sharing rules | Test first — do not guess |
Recommended Workflow
Work the six gates in references/metadata-examples.md in order. Each step ends with an artefact, not a Setup click.
- Classify every route. Retrieve the site bundle (
experiences/ for classic LWR and Aura, digitalExperiences/ for enhanced LWR) and grep the route files for "pageAccess". Resolve every UseParent to Public or RequiresLogin. For an Aura site, enable ExperienceBundle Metadata API first or the routes will not come back at all — see gate 2 in references/metadata-examples.md.
- Retrieve the guest profile with its objects. Build the manifest from the
package.xml in references/metadata-examples.md: Profile plus a CustomObject member for every object the public pages touch, standard objects named individually. A profile-only retrieve returns almost no permissions and will make an over-permissive profile look clean (gotcha 9).
- Write the profile to the pages, not the other way round. For each public route, list the components' objects and the fields on screen, then set
objectPermissions (allowRead true, the other four and the three escalation flags explicitly false) and one fieldPermissions entry per displayed field. Add allowCreate only where a form submits, and record why in the template.
- Release records with
sharingGuestRules. Confirm externalSharingModel is Private, then write one guest rule per publishable set with accessLevel Read, sharedTo/guestUser naming this site's guest nickname, and criteriaItems that discriminate published from draft. Decide includeHVUOwnedRecords now — it cannot be edited after the rule is created (gotcha 13).
- Set the site and network files. Add
siteGuestRecordDefaultOwner to the CustomSite file in the same package as any allowCreate. Set clickjackProtectionLevel, and set enableGuestChatter / enableGuestFileAccess / enableGuestMemberVisibility deliberately on the Network file.
- Run the checker, then deploy check-only.
python3 skills/admin/experience-cloud-guest-access/scripts/check_experience_cloud_guest_access.py --manifest-dir <source-root> --guest-profile "<the guest profile's real file name>" — the guest profile's generated name is UNVERIFIED (2026-09-04): the Metadata API guide documents neither it nor the guest user license label, so read the name out of your retrieve rather than assuming <Site> Profile. The checker errors on escalating object permissions, forbidden system permissions, and any guest rule whose accessLevel is not Read; it warns on guest write permissions, a missing default owner, inert requireHttps / guestProfile elements, and enabled network guest flags. Fix the errors, judge the warnings, then sf project deploy start --dry-run.
- Prove it from outside. Run the three verification steps at the end of
references/metadata-examples.md: the UserType = 'Guest' query, the ObjectPermissions and RowCause = 'GuestRule' pair that isolates which gate is failing, and the unauthenticated curl against one Public and one RequiresLogin route. Re-retrieve the Network file afterwards to confirm enableGuestFileAccess still reads what you deployed (gotcha 8). Complete templates/experience-cloud-guest-access-template.md as the record, then hand off what this skill does not own: Apex reachable from a public page goes to security/guest-user-security, an already-live site needing an exposure sweep goes to security/guest-user-security-audit, and the crawl and indexing decision goes to admin/experience-cloud-seo-settings.
Review Checklist
Run through these before marking work in this area complete:
Salesforce-Specific Gotchas
- Each site has exactly one guest profile — and it is shared across all public pages — changing the guest profile to support a new public page also affects every other public page on the same site. Adding Read access to a new object on the guest profile means that object is now readable on any public page that happens to query it, not only the new one.
- FLS on the guest profile applies to all guest Apex calls, not just page components — if an Apex class runs in guest context and you remove a field from the guest profile, the field will appear blank or throw an error in any public page that calls that class, not only the page you intended to change.
- External OWD controls record visibility for guest users — not internal OWD — internal OWD governs authenticated user sharing. Guest users respect external OWD only. Setting internal OWD to Public Read Only does not automatically make records readable by guests if external OWD is Private.
- Guest User Sharing Rules for a site are site-specific — a sharing rule created for Site A's guest user does not apply to Site B's guest user. Each site's guest user is a distinct system user and requires its own sharing rules.
- Page Access = Public does not override empty guest profile permissions — a page set to Public will render for a guest, but if the guest profile has no Read access to the objects the page components query, the components will return empty results or errors. Both the page setting AND the profile permissions are required.
Output Artifacts
| Artifact | Description |
|---|
| Public page access checklist | Completed template documenting page access settings, guest profile permissions, and sharing rule configuration for the site (see templates/) |
| Guest profile permission summary | Object-by-object and field-by-field list of what Read/Create access was granted on the guest profile and why |
| Sharing rule inventory | List of Guest User Sharing Rules configured for the site, with criteria and objects covered |
Reference Files
| File | Read it when |
|---|
references/metadata-examples.md | Writing the deployable shape — the six gates in deploy order, package.xml, retrieve/deploy commands, and the three verification steps that isolate which gate is failing |
references/gotchas.md | A public page shows nothing, shows too much, or a setting you deployed did not stick — fifteen platform behaviours behind those three symptoms |
references/examples.md | Working a real requirement end to end before any XML exists — a public Knowledge base, a public product catalog, and the broaden-permissions anti-pattern |
references/llm-anti-patterns.md | Reviewing AI-generated guest-access advice, especially "set the OWD to Public Read Only" and View All offered as a fix for an empty page |
references/well-architected.md | Framing the Public-OWD-versus-sharing-rule tradeoff, and locating the official source behind each claim |
templates/experience-cloud-guest-access-template.md | Workflow step 1, and again at review time as the one-page record of which routes are public, what the guest profile grants, and which records are released |
scripts/check_experience_cloud_guest_access.py | Before every deploy — static checks on the guest profile, guest sharing rules, and the site and network files |
Related Skills
security/guest-user-security — use when the question is hardening, auditing, or remediating security exposure on the guest user profile rather than configuring public page access.admin/experience-cloud-site-setup — use when the task is creating or initially configuring an Experience Cloud site rather than configuring guest access on an existing site.admin/experience-cloud-member-management — use when the question involves authenticated external user access, sharing sets, or member profiles rather than guest access.admin/sharing-and-visibility — use when the broader sharing model design (OWD strategy, role hierarchy, internal sharing rules) is the primary question.admin/sharing-rules — use when the SharingRules container itself is the question: which rule type, the FilterOperation enumeration, or a second worked sharingGuestRules example on a different object.security/guest-user-security-audit — use when the site is already live and the task is sweeping it for exposure rather than configuring it.admin/experience-cloud-seo-settings — use when the question is whether and how public pages should be indexed by search engines.