Catalyst Agent Skills

A collection of AI agent skills for Catalyst by Zoho — the full-stack serverless cloud platform.

These skills give AI coding agents (Claude, etc.) deep knowledge of Catalyst's platform, services, SDK patterns, and best practices — enabling them to write deployment-ready Catalyst code, recommend the right architecture, and even manage infrastructure directly via Zoho MCP tools.

What's included

Note: For edge-case lookups not covered by the Tier 1 or Tier 2 reference files, the skill instructs agents to search the official Catalyst docs site (docs.catalyst.zoho.com) and fetch individual pages — rather than bundling the full documentation dump locally. This keeps the repo lean while ensuring accurate, up-to-date answers.

Dedicated skills (full guidance + code examples)

Also covered (via reference files, no dedicated skill)

Circuits (workflows), Pipelines (CI/CD), ConvoKraft (chatbots), Logs, APM, Alerts, GitHub integration, VS Code Extension, REST APIs. These topics appear in architecture guides and SDK references — agents will find relevant guidance but won't have a dedicated step-by-step skill.

Installation

Option 1: Agent Skills CLI

Install with a single command — works with Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot, Windsurf, and any other Agent Skills-compatible tool:

npx skills add catalystbyzoho/agent-skills

The CLI automatically detects which AI tools you have configured and installs the skills in the right location for each one.

Option 2: Claude Code (Plugin)

Prerequisites: You must have the Claude Code CLI installed. Open your system terminal (not the Claude Code desktop app or web interface) and start a session with claude before running the commands below.

Steps:

1. Register this repository as a plugin marketplace source:

   /plugin marketplace add catalystbyzoho/agent-skills
   

2. Install the Catalyst skill plugin:

   /plugin install catalyst-by-zoho@catalyst-by-zoho
   

3. Set up Zoho MCP so Claude can manage Catalyst infrastructure (create tables, cache) directly from the conversation:

   1. Go to mcp.zoho.com → create or open an MCP server
   2. Under Tools → Config Tools, search for "Catalyst by Zoho" and add it
   3. Under Connections, set authorization to "On Demand"
   4. Copy your MCP server URL (format: https://<server>-<org>.zohomcp.com/mcp/<token>/message)
   5. In your project, open .mcp.json and replace the <YOUR_ZOHO_MCP_URL> placeholder with your URL

   For full details and verification steps, see the Zoho MCP setup section below.

Option 3: Gemini CLI (Extension)

gemini extensions install https://github.com/catalystbyzoho/agent-skills

Option 4: Cursor

Via symlink (recommended):

git clone https://github.com/catalystbyzoho/agent-skills.git
ln -s /path/to/catalyst-skills/skills ~/.cursor/rules/catalyst-by-zoho

Or via the plugin manifest: The .cursor-plugin/plugin.json in this repo points Cursor to the skills/ directory automatically if Cursor supports plugin manifests in your version. Alternatively, copy the .cursor-plugin/ and skills/ folders into your project root.

Option 5: GitHub Copilot

1. Clone the repo:

   git clone https://github.com/catalystbyzoho/agent-skills.git
   

2. Append the contents of skills/catalyst-by-zoho/SKILL.md to your project's .github/copilot-instructions.md — do not replace the file if it already has content.

   Strip the frontmatter first. SKILL.md starts with a YAML frontmatter block that copilot-instructions.md does not support. Remove everything between and including the opening and closing --- lines before appending:

   ---
   name: catalyst-by-zoho
   description: >
     ...
   ---
   

   Everything after the second --- is the skill content — that's what you append.

   Quick one-liner to append with frontmatter stripped:

   awk '/^---/{f++; next} f>=2' skills/catalyst-by-zoho/SKILL.md >> .github/copilot-instructions.md
   

3. Copy the skills/ folder into .github/ for the agent to load reference files on demand

Option 6: Windsurf

1. Clone the repo:

   git clone https://github.com/catalystbyzoho/agent-skills.git
   

2. Copy skills/ into your project's .windsurfrules/ directory

Option 7: Any other AI tool (Manual)

1. Clone the repo:

   git clone https://github.com/catalystbyzoho/agent-skills.git
   

2. Point your AI tool to the skills/ directory, or copy its contents to wherever your tool reads skill/instruction files

Zoho MCP setup (recommended, all tools)

To let the AI manage Catalyst infrastructure (create tables, query data, manage cache/buckets) directly:

1. Create a Zoho MCP server at mcp.zoho.com
2. Add "Catalyst by Zoho" tools to the server
3. Enable "On Demand" authorization (not "Authorization via Connection")
4. Copy your MCP server URL — go to the Connect tab → Server URL field (format: https://<server>-<org>.zohomcp.com/mcp/<token>/message)
5. Add it to your tool's MCP config, or update the <YOUR_ZOHO_MCP_URL> placeholder in .mcp.json

Note: .mcp.json ships with a placeholder URL. See the _setup field inside for instructions.

See skills/catalyst-zoho-mcp/references/zoho-mcp.md for detailed setup and verification steps.

What the skill enables

• Architecture recommendations — get Catalyst-specific service picks for your use case
• Production-ready code generation — correct handler signatures, SDK patterns, catalyst-config.json, and project structure that works with catalyst deploy
• Platform migration guidance — maps AWS, GCP, Azure, Vercel, Firebase, Supabase, and Heroku services to Catalyst equivalents
• Infrastructure management via Zoho MCP — create tables, insert data, run ZCQL queries, manage cache/buckets directly from the AI conversation
• Pricing estimation — detailed cost breakdowns with unit prices and free tier offsets

Contributing

We welcome contributions! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

About CATALYST.md

CATALYST.md at the repo root is a lightweight MCP routing stub — it contains only the minimal context needed for MCP-enabled tools (e.g. Claude Code with Zoho MCP connected) to discover and invoke CatalystbyZoho_* tools correctly.

It is not a replacement for the full skill. If you are building a Catalyst application, always use skills/catalyst-by-zoho/SKILL.md (and its references/ folder), which includes the complete service catalog, SDK patterns, handler signatures, architecture guidance, and all reference docs. CATALYST.md alone is insufficient for app development.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License — see the LICENSE file for details.

Resources

• Catalyst Documentation
• Catalyst Pricing
• Catalyst GitHub
• Zoho MCP