Deploy this project

Softkiln hosts the app and runs everything around it: the production and dev URLs, the database, secrets, backups, monitoring and the sign-in page. You drive all of it through the softkiln MCP tools bundled with this plugin.

First, know who you are acting as

Call whoami before anything that creates or bills. It returns the signed-in account, whether billing is valid, how much of the free trial is left, and whether another app can be created. Never guess any of that. Raise anything under needs_attention with the user — those apps are on a clock.

If the tools are not available, the user has not connected yet. Point them at /mcp to finish the browser sign-in; the account is created on first connect and no token is copied anywhere.

If the project is not hosted yet

1. list_apps — check it isn't already there under another name.
2. check_app_name — confirms the name is free and that the account is ready to create, before any work starts.
3. create_app — scaffolds, provisions and deploys. Takes 60–180s; poll get_job(job_id) until it succeeds or fails.

Two of its responses are a choice, not a failure. Put them to the user and call again rather than reporting an error:

• organization_choice — ask which organization should own and be billed for the app. Never guess; personal and team organizations bill different people.
• billing_choice_required — offer only the options actually in the response.

Then act on the remember block it returns. Append it to AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md in the directory you are working in, before building anything. Nothing else will tell a later session that this app is managed and must not be worked on as an ordinary local repo.

If the project is already hosted

Changes go to develop first, then to production.

1. Make the change through the snapshot flow — prepare_local_snapshot, edit locally, let the user review the diff, then apply_local_patch. Do not clone, do not add a remote, do not push.
2. get_app_status and get_app_logs — confirm the dev deploy is actually up before promoting.
3. promote — releases to the production URL. It runs a secret scan over the diff first and blocks on a hardcoded secret.

When it does not work

get_app_logs with type="build" for a deploy that never shipped, and type="runtime" for an app that deployed but is erroring. Read the logs before guessing at a cause.

Do not

• Deploy or provision infrastructure yourself. The app is operated by the platform; every deploy goes through promote.
• Put a secret in env_vars or set_variables. API keys, tokens and passwords are entered by a human on the app's settings page, so the value never passes through an AI context.
• Look in the repo for the sign-in page or the account emails. They are managed through the MCP tools, not committed as files.