No fermenting chiles is not a must before making a hot sauce and check out - fermenting peppers 101& making hot sauce 101 so much info on those two posts. What peppers are you gonna add into the sauce?
I have never done a fermented sauce but someone asked a few days ago what is the different between the two and i was able to find some quotes from fermenting peppers 101 to get some more info on it. Check out "to ferment or not to ferment" for that info.