catalyst-signals

name	catalyst-signals
description	Catalyst Signals — event-driven architecture platform for near-instantaneous communication between decoupled applications. Supports Zoho publishers, Catalyst publishers, custom publishers, webhooks, functions, circuits, event filtering, transformation, batch/scheduled dispatch, and retry policies. Trigger on 'Signals', 'event bus', 'publisher', 'event-driven', 'webhook target', 'dispatch policy', 'event transformation', 'rule filter', or 'event ordering'. Console-only service — no SDK or programmatic API.
metadata	{"version":"2.0.0"}

Prerequisites

Before using Signals, activate it once per project in the console:

Console → your project → Signals (left sidebar) → click "Start Exploring"

Skipping this step prevents access to Publishers, Webhooks, Rules, and Logs. This is a one-time activation per project.

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How It Works

1. Console-Only Service — HARD STOP if user expects SDK/API. Catalyst Signals is configured entirely through the Catalyst Console — there is NO SDK, REST API, or programmatic interface for creating publishers, rules, or webhooks. All setup is done via the console UI.

   • Publishers, events, webhooks, and rules are created in Console → Signals
   • Functions and Circuits are created separately in Console → Serverless, then selected as targets in Signals rules
   • The only code-level interaction is receiving events in target functions/circuits

2. Understand the flow — Publisher → Event → Rule (with filters/transforms) → Target (Webhook/Function/Circuit)

3. Load references/signals-basics.md — for publishers (Zoho/Catalyst/Custom), events, rules, targets, dispatch policies, event statuses, and deployment gotchas

4. Key concepts:

   • Publishers emit events when actions occur (3 types: Zoho, Catalyst CloudScale, Custom)
   • Events are JSON payloads with auto-generated schemas (max 100KB for Zoho, 64KB for Custom)
   • Rules connect publishers to targets with optional filters and payload transformations
   • Targets receive events via Webhooks, Functions, or Circuits
   • Dispatch Policy controls event delivery: One-Time (immediate), Scheduled (time-based), or Batching (count/size aggregation)

5. Deployment warning — Rules are locked in production (enable/disable only). All rule changes must be made in Development and deployed. Max 25 publishers per deployment.

Security Checklist

• Custom publisher REST API rate limit: 500 requests per minute. Exceeding this locks the API URL for 60 seconds.
• Environment-specific REST API URLs: Custom event REST API URLs differ between Development and Production — update URLs when deploying.
• Function/Circuit targets inherit their own permissions: If a function is the target, it runs with whatever scope it was configured with (user or admin). Signals does not override function-level permissions.
• Event payload size limits: Zoho publishers max 100KB per event (5MB for multi-event batch). Custom publishers max 64KB per event (256KB for up to 25 events).

Triggers

Use this skill for: "Signals", "Catalyst event bus", "event-driven architecture", "publisher", "Zoho publisher", "Catalyst publisher", "custom publisher", "event schema", "rule", "event filter", "event transformation", "webhook target", "dispatch policy", "one-time dispatch", "scheduled dispatch", "batch dispatch", "event ordering", "retry policy", "TTL", "event status", "Signals logs", "Signals dashboard", "deploy Signals", or "Signals console".

References

Reference	Load when the query is about…
references/signals-basics.md	Publishers (Zoho/Catalyst/Custom), events and schemas, custom event REST API, rules and filters, targets (webhooks/functions/circuits), dispatch policies (One-Time/Scheduled/Batching), event transformation, retry policies, event ordering, event statuses, logs, dashboard, deployment limits, production restrictions