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How MSM Inheritance Works

AEM’s Multi Site Manager allows you to create language copies and regional variations that inherit content from a source (blueprint). When the source is updated, those changes can roll out automatically to inherited pages—keeping localized sites in sync without manual updates. Inheritance can be set at the page level or component level:
  • Page-level inheritance — The entire page inherits from the blueprint
  • Component-level inheritance — Individual components inherit while others are localized independently
This architecture is powerful for managing global sites, but it also means edits need to be made carefully. Changing an inherited component breaks that inheritance relationship, which may not be the intended outcome.

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How Gradial Respects Inheritance

By default, Gradial protects MSM inheritance to prevent unintended breaks in your localization architecture.

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MSM Inheritance Protection

When MSM Inheritance Protection is enabled (the default), Gradial blocks edits to pages or components with active inheritance. This ensures that:
  • Inherited content isn’t accidentally overwritten
  • Your blueprint/live copy relationships stay intact
  • Localization teams don’t inadvertently break rollout configurations
If Gradial encounters a page with active inheritance, it will notify you rather than proceeding with edits that would break the inheritance chain.

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Common Issue: “Why Can’t I Edit This Page?”

Sometimes users report that Gradial is “blocking” them from editing a page. In most cases, Gradial isn’t blocking the edit—MSM inheritance is.

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What’s Happening

When you see a message about inheritance preventing an edit, it means:
  1. The page (or component) you’re trying to edit is a live copy
  2. It’s currently inheriting content from a blueprint page
  3. Gradial is protecting that relationship so it doesn’t get broken accidentally

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What This Means

If Gradial were to edit this page, it would cancel the inheritance. That means future updates to the blueprint would no longer roll out to this page automatically. For most localization setups, that’s not what you want.

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What to Do

If you need to edit the blueprint instead: The content you want to change may need to be updated on the source blueprint page, not the live copy. Changes to the blueprint will then roll out to all live copies. If this page genuinely needs local customization: Contact your administrator to either disable MSM Inheritance Protection or manually cancel inheritance for this specific page in AEM. This is the right choice when a regional market needs content that differs from the blueprint permanently. If you’re not sure: Ask your localization or site architecture team whether this page should be inheriting or independent. They can help determine the right approach.

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Overriding Inheritance

Sometimes you need to break inheritance intentionally—for example, when a regional market requires substantially different content that shouldn’t be overwritten by blueprint updates.

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Administrator Override

Administrators can disable MSM Inheritance Protection at the integration level:
  1. Navigate to your workspace settings
  2. Open Integrations and select your AEM configuration
  3. In the General tab, locate MSM Inheritance Protection
  4. Uncheck “Block edits to pages with active MSM inheritance”
  5. Click Save Changes
With protection disabled, Gradial can edit inherited pages directly. This will cancel inheritance for any components that are modified.

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When to Override

Consider overriding inheritance when:
  • A regional page needs permanent local customization
  • The content strategy for a specific market diverges from the blueprint
  • You’re doing a one-time localization that shouldn’t sync with future blueprint changes