What RouteCraft is and how it works.

What is RouteCraft?

RouteCraft is a code-first automation platform for TypeScript. It's built for developers who want their AI to actually do things: send emails, book meetings, manage calendars, not just answer questions.

Unlike visual workflow builders that limit what you can do, RouteCraft gives you the full power of TypeScript. Write routes as code, expose them to AI agents via MCP, and deploy anywhere from your laptop to the cloud.

RouteCraft is AI-native from the ground up:

1. Make AI useful - Turn any route into a tool for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and other agents
2. Code, not configs - TypeScript all the way with full IDE support and type safety
3. Safe by design - AI only accesses the routes you explicitly code

In short, RouteCraft makes AI automation powerful, flexible, and controllable. Build tools that actually work, test them like any code, and deploy with confidence.

Why AI Native Matters

AI Can Do More Than Chat
Your AI should send emails, book appointments, manage your calendar, and automate real work. RouteCraft turns any route into a tool that AI agents can discover and use.

Code Beats Visual Builders
Drag-and-drop tools are great until you need custom logic, error handling, or complex transformations. With RouteCraft, you write TypeScript: version controlled, testable, and reviewable.

Built-In Safety
AI only accesses what you code. Need email access? Write a route. Calendar integration? Write a route. Everything else is off-limits. No surprises, no security nightmares.

Core Concepts

These concepts give you a high-level map of how everything fits together.

Routes

A route is the heart of RouteCraft. It connects a source to one or more steps (operations, processors, or adapters), and eventually to a destination. Think of a route as a small, focused workflow, like "fetch data from an API, transform it, then log the result."

The DSL

RouteCraft uses a fluent DSL (Domain-Specific Language) to define routes.
It reads like a pipeline:

craft()
  .from(source)
  .transform(fn)
  .to(destination)

This makes routes easy to write, easy to read, and easy to extend.

Operations

Operations are the steps inside a route. They can transform data, filter messages, enrich with external calls, or split and aggregate streams. They are the verbs of the DSL, like transform, filter, enrich, and to.

Adapters

Adapters are connectors that let your routes interact with the outside world.
They come in different types:

• Sources: where data enters (HTTP requests, timers, files).
• Processors: steps that modify or enrich the exchange.
• Destinations: side effects, where the data ends up (logs, databases, APIs).
• Taps: like logging or metrics, without changing the flow.

Adapters make RouteCraft extendable. You can use built-ins or create your own.

Exchange

Every step in a route passes along an exchange. An exchange carries the body (the main data) and headers (metadata like IDs, params, or context). It's the message envelope that moves through your route from start to finish.

Context

The RouteCraft context is the runtime that manages your routes.
It knows how to:

• Load routes.
• Start and stop them.
• Handle hot reload in development.
• Run a route once for jobs or tests.

You can run a context with the CLI, or embed it programmatically in your own app.

How it all fits

• Routes are the workflows.
• DSL is how you describe them.
• Operations are the steps.
• Adapters connect to the outside world.
• Exchange is the data that flows through.
• Context is the engine that runs everything.

Together, these concepts make RouteCraft a developer-first automation and integration framework that is simple to start with but powerful to extend.