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Introduction

The Developer Guide is for engineers who want to extend ByteChef with new components (connectors) or understand how the platform runs the workflows they power. Everything here builds on the same Java Component SDK (sdks/backend/java) that ships the 260+ built-in components listed in the component reference; most of them live under server/libs/modules/components/.

Ways to build a component

There are two supported paths, and they are complementary:

• Build a component by hand - start from the example component template and write the definition, actions, triggers, connection, and tests yourself. Best for components with custom logic, non-REST protocols, or bespoke behavior.
• Generate a component from OpenAPI - point the CLI at an OpenAPI specification and let it scaffold the actions, properties, and connection for you, then customize the generated code. Best for REST APIs that already ship an OpenAPI spec.

Both paths produce the same artifact: a component module that the platform discovers and surfaces in the workflow editor's component panel.

Reference

• Component specification - every DSL method for the component, action, trigger, connection, and property builders, method by method.
• Working with triggers - configuring ngrok and the local webhook URL so provider callbacks reach your machine while developing webhook triggers.

Understand the internals

• Architecture deep dive - how the Atlas engine, message broker, trigger machinery, and Component SDK fit together, and what happens between hitting Run and a task's perform function executing.