Developer Guide
This guide is for people working on Cinatra’s code — writing agents, building extensions, contributing to the platform, integrating with the open standards Cinatra speaks.
For end-user material, see the User Guide. For platform-administration content, see the Admin Guide. For installation and configuration, see the Hosting Guide. For the MCP server (external and internal), see the MCP Guide.
Foundations
Section titled “Foundations”- Architecture — how the platform is composed: monorepo layout, runtime split, package boundaries
- Security — identities, authentication, authorization, secrets handling, agent execution safety
- Objects layer — the platform’s typed object store, dual-write hooks, registration
Authoring agents and extensions
Section titled “Authoring agents and extensions”- Developing agents — the file-driven contributor authoring loop
- Building packages — extension architecture and package conventions
- Extensions — engineering reference for the lifecycle (install / archive / restore / force-delete, visibility, origin contract)
- Shell skills — give an agent shell tool access
Open standards
Section titled “Open standards”- Open standards in Cinatra — A2A, AG-UI, A2UI, OAS — what Cinatra implements, the version pins, the endpoint matrix
- Cross-instance collaboration — registry routing, external A2A surface, AgentCard discovery, and how two instances talk at the protocol level
Integrations
Section titled “Integrations”- Integrating Cinatra with a CMS — the WordPress and Drupal reference integrations, plus how to wire a third CMS the same way
- ChatGPT built-in assistant
- Gemini built-in assistant — documented design, not currently wired into the chat surface
Contribute
Section titled “Contribute”Where to go next
Section titled “Where to go next”- The MCP architecture underpinning every cross-package call: Internal architecture
- The runtime configuration surface: Configuration