Should I do pre-launch dev work on the XDN?
We recommend that you start with the end in mind including where to host your site so that you can get the best performance and dev experience
As your development of the new site continues, there is going to work at the end of the project that will take days/week given the work if not done in an optimized fashion on the XDN.
By simply just doing the work on the XDN you will greatly accelerate your dev teams through features like branch preview with perma urls for every deployment that increases collaboration and allows teams to find issues and iterate faster. This is one of the many values of the platform
The XDN also allows you to build in edge caching, performance optimization and monitoring rather than trying to add it after development, allowing teams to launch fast sites sooner. You can get started in an environment where you can develop on today so you can see the XDN in action without any obligation.
Strongly suggest you try this as the difference at the end of a project for developers is night and day when it comes to a launch and dealing with the immediate issues that follow. Not to mention it will be significantly faster out of the box