Headless Toolkit: Core Concepts

MCP, Plugins and AI Skills, APIs, and the Salesforce CLI are the building blocks behind headless development on Salesforce. Together, they power the tools you use to connect AI to your org and build with it, from Slackbot and Agentforce Coworker to Builder Central (Beta) and Agentforce Vibes. The right choice for you depends on your preferences and the requirements for your development environment.

Understand Model Context Protocol (MCP) Servers

MCP is an open standard that connects Salesforce to any AI agent. It provides the agent with tools optimized workflows designed for what you do every day in Salesforce.```

Salesforce-hosted standard MCP servers: Standard MCP servers that bundle out-of-the-box platform capabilities. Salesforce-hosted MCPs provide security in the same way that the Salesforce apps do. You don’t have to worry about an agent taking actions you aren’t authorized for. A Salesforce-hosted MCP server authenticates via Salesforce org, giving external AI agents access to your Salesforce metadata, data, and functionality.
Salesforce-hosted product MCP servers: Salesforce product-specific MCP servers that are available through prebuilt integrations in hosted MCP servers. The MCP servers have product-specific server URLs, such as Tableau Next MCP or MuleSoft MCP.
External MCP servers: Third-party servers require manual registration, installation, and they appear as external servers under API Catalog.
Custom MCP servers: Custom servers created to combine MCP tools from different servers to accomplish broader workflows.

Learn how to set up your org.

Build with Plugins and AI Skills

Plugins and skills are reusable packages that extend AI coding tools (Claude Code, Agentforce Vibes, and other coding agents) with Salesforce-specific capabilities. AI Skills transform your AI tool into a Salesforce expert that already understands Salesforce context, patterns, and conventions, so you don’t have to re-explain them every session.

Plugins package related capabilities (skills, MCP servers, and tools) together so an AI coding tool can pick them up in one step.
Skills: are bundles of instructions, examples, and grounding content that teach an AI coding tool how to perform a specific Salesforce task, such as building an Apex service, authoring metadata or deploying to an org. Before Salesforce distributes a skill, it’s checked for accuracy, expected results, and consistent organization.

Get started with the Salesforce Development Plugin for Claude Code. Learn how to use AI Skills.

Work with Salesforce APIs and Command Line Interfaces (CLIs)

Salesforce APIs and CLIs are two of the core tools that make headless functionality possible, allowing you to interact with Salesforce without a browser. Think of APIs as a direct phone line into Salesforce: any tool that knows the number can call in and get things done. The CLI is like a shortcut keyboard for developers. It’s faster and more powerful than clicking through screens.

APIs give coding agents, tools, and external systems programmatic access to your Salesforce data, business logic, workflows, and Agentforce. Salesforce provides thousands of APIs across the platform, and with headless interactions, every capability is accessible this way.
Salesforce CLI lets you interact with Salesforce directly from a terminal. You can create, deploy, and manage Salesforce components without opening a browser.

Review the API library. [Explore the Salesforce CLI]https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/platform/sfdx-setup/guide/sfdx-setup-intro.html).