Headless Development Tools

Headless Agentforce development doesn’t lock you into a single toolchain. Drive the entire agent lifecycle — build, deploy, test, debug — from an AI-powered IDE, a general-purpose coding agent, Salesforce CLI, direct API calls, or Agent Script. The right choice for you depends on your preferences and the requirements for your development environment.

Two common starting points are Agentforce Vibes or third-party AI coding tools, such as Claude Code, grounded with the Salesforce skills library.

Agentforce Vibes

Agentforce Vibes is Salesforce’s AI-powered VS Code extension. It comes prepackaged with the Salesforce skills librsry so that the coding agent already knows how to scaffold projects, generate Agent Script, deploy metadata, and run tests without any extra setup.

The advantages include:

Zero configuration for Salesforce work — Skills are included so that Vibes understands Agentforce conventions from your first prompt.
Deep platform integration — Live preview sessions, the Agentforce DX panel, and org-aware commands are wired into the IDE.
Up-to-date skills — Vibes automatically updates the skills so that you get current best practices for the Agentforce development lifecycle without having to manually keep skills in sync with the latest versions.

Third-Party AI Coding Tools

Coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor don’t ship with Salesforce context. To ground them, install the Salesforce skills library globally or in your project directory:

1npx skills add forcedotcom/sf-skills

After installation, skills such as developing-agentforce, testing-agentforce, and observing-agentforce activate automatically based on the task.

The advantages include:

Work in the tool you already use — Keep your existing coding agent and workflows instead of switching IDEs for Salesforce work.
Composable with other skills — Layer Salesforce skills alongside skills for your other development work in the same tool.
Model and vendor choice — Pick the underlying model and coding agent that fit your team, budget, and evaluation criteria.

Lower-Level Tools

To drive headless development, you can also use one of these lower-level tools:

Salesforce CLI — Scaffold, deploy, preview, and test agents from the terminal or a continuous integration (CI) system.
Agent Script — Author the declarative format that defines your agent’s sub-agents, routing, instructions, and actions.
MCP Servers — Use Salesforce’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) solutions, such as the Salesforce DX MCP Server and Salesforce Hosted MCP Servers, to enable AI applications to securely interact with your orgs, data, and services through pre-built connections.
Agent API and other Salesforce APIs — Invoke agents and read or write platform data from any runtime.

Headless development opens a world of tool possibilities. Choose your own adventure!

Headless Development Tools

Agentforce Vibes

Third-Party AI Coding Tools

Lower-Level Tools

See Also