Tray Headless
Build on Tray from any AI IDE. The full Tray platform — workflows, connectors, authentication, validation, and runs — built from natural language in your AI development environment.
Tray Headless brings the complete Tray platform — building workflows, configuring connectors, setting up authentication, validating, and running — into your AI development environment, as text. It's the full platform surface, not a subset or a wrapper.
Two ways to use it
There are two ways to work with Tray Headless, both backed by the same hosted Tray platform.
- The guided plugin — the
tray-workflowsplugin bundles skills, a connector-research subagent, built-in validation, and an opinionated build process on top of the Tray platform tools. Available for Claude Code and Codex. Best when you want the assistant to plan, research, build, validate, and test a workflow for you from a plain-English description. - Tray Headless MCP — the same Tray platform capabilities exposed as MCP tools, hosted at
api.tray.io/mcp. Point any MCP-compatible client at it — Cursor, Windsurf, or your own agent. Best when you're working outside the guided plugin or building your own automation against Tray.
Both talk to the same hosted Tray platform, so anything built headless opens in Tray's visual builder with no migration. Build in text, hand off to the canvas, or move between the two freely.
Which should I use?
| Tray Headless plugin (Claude Code or Codex) | Tray Headless MCP | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Guided, end-to-end workflow building in Claude Code or Codex | Using Tray tools in any MCP client or your own agent |
| Includes | Skills, research subagent, build process, validation surfacing | The platform tools only |
| Setup | Install the plugin + sign in | Add an HTTP MCP server entry + sign in |
| What you get | Guided workflow building + platform tools | Platform tools only |
The guided plugin is one client of the Tray MCP server; the difference is that the plugin adds the guided build process, skills, and a research subagent on top. The raw server gives you the tools, and you (or your agent) drive them.
How it fits together
A few terms recur across both surfaces:
- Workspace — your Tray environment. You choose which workspace to target when you sign in to Tray (OAuth2); every build lands there.
- Project — a container for workflows within a workspace.
- Workflow — a trigger plus a series of steps. The unit you build and run.
- Connector — an integration such as Salesforce, Slack, or Google Sheets, with versioned operations. Some connectors are triggers.
- Authentication — a stored credential for a connector's service, reused across workflows. Both surfaces use a one-time browser sign-in to Tray (OAuth2) — there's no API token to generate or paste.
- Validation — Tray's server-side structural checks, run on every change and as a whole-workflow audit.
- Visual builder — Tray's graphical workflow editor. Headless builds open there directly; there's no migration step.