Controller & Action selection

Once the published content request has been created, and MVC is the selected rendering engine, it's time to execute an MVC Controller's Action.

Defaults

By default, Umbraco will execute every request via its built in default controller: Umbraco.Web.Mvc.RenderMvcController. The MVC Action that executes by default for every request is the Index action on the RenderMvcController.

Changing the default

It is possible to use a custom Controller and Action to be executed during the Umbraco request pipeline. A default Controller can be set during startup in the ApplicationStarting method, for example:

public class MyCustomStartupHandler : ApplicationEventHandler
{
    protected override void ApplicationStarting(UmbracoApplicationBase umbracoApplication, ApplicationContext applicationContext)
    {
        DefaultRenderMvcControllerResolver.Current.SetDefaultControllerType(typeof(MyCustomRenderMvcController));
    }
}

It is a requirement that your custom controller inherit from Umbraco.Web.MVC.RenderMvcController. You can override the Index method to perform any customizations that you require.

Custom controller selection

Custom controllers can be created to execute for different Umbraco Document Types and Templates. This is termed 'Hijacking Umbraco Routes'. For full details on how this process works, see Custom Controllers