In version 2 of SDL’s Digital Experience Accelerator (mostly referred to as DXA), SDL introduced the DXA resolver. Customizing the resolving process can be used to manipulate the list of items to publish that results from a publish action.
In the documentation of DXA, available on SDL’s Documentation Center, the changes in DXA 2.0 are described, including the new resolver:
“The DXA Resolver ensures that the linked Dynamic Component Presentations are automatically republished. If your site uses Dynamic Component Presentations (DCPs) that include linked components (sometimes referred to as “data presentations”), you need the DXA Resolver to ensure these DCPs are automatically republished.
By default, the DXA Resolver’s recursion depth is infinite. The DXA Resolver includes an extension to the Content Manager user interface that enables you to configure the recursion depth, as needed.“
But what does this new resolver really do behind the scenes? When publishing a page, the resolver takes care of publishing a Dynamic Component Presentation (DCP) for every component on the page which is using a Schema linked to the Component Template titled “Generate Data Presentation” (by default, only the Schema “Article” is linked to this Component Template).
When publishing a DCP, the resolver also takes care of ensuring linked components (using a Schema linked to the “Generate Data Presentation” template) will be published as data presentations.