What will occur if hostnames are not added to your Windows hosts file in Sitecore?

When hostnames are not added to the Windows hosts file in Sitecore, the consequence is that you won’t be able to access the Sitecore environment using the IP address assigned to your application. The Windows hosts file is crucial for mapping hostnames to IP addresses, allowing your system to resolve the domain names to their respective locations on the network. Without these mappings, attempts to access the Sitecore environment via the specified hostname will not work, and you might receive errors or be directed to the wrong locations.

This step is essential, particularly when setting up local development environments or when working with containerized applications such as those managed by Docker. In these cases, the hostname resolution ensures that the application can properly communicate over the network, allowing developers to interact with Sitecore as intended.