/catalyst-basics

Catalyst Console UI Guide

Step-by-step navigation for the most common console tasks.

Coverage note: This guide documents the most commonly needed console flows. The following areas are not yet documented here and require consulting the official Catalyst docs (append index.md to any page URL to fetch it as markdown):

• Hosted Authentication (OAuth providers, custom login pages)
• Billing activation and plan upgrades
• Cache segment creation (Cloud Scale → Cache → New Segment)
• NoSQL collection and table creation (Cloud Scale → NoSQL)
• Stratus bucket creation and IAM policy setup (Cloud Scale → Stratus)
• Connections configuration (Connections → New Connection → OAuth provider setup)
• Signals and Job Scheduling setup

Finding Project ID and Table ID

Project ID

1. Open console.catalyst.zoho.com and click your project
2. Look at the browser URL: https://console.catalyst.zoho.com/baas/<ORG_ID>/project/<PROJECT_ID>/
3. PROJECT_ID is the numeric segment after /project/

Table ID

1. Console → your project → Data Store → click your table
2. Look at the browser URL: .../datastore/<TABLE_ID>/table
3. TABLE_ID is the numeric segment after /datastore/

Creating a Data Store Table with Columns

1. Console → your project → Data Store

2. Click Add Table (top-right)

3. Enter a table name (e.g., Tasks) — names are case-sensitive in ZCQL

4. Click Add Column for each field you need:

   Column type	SDK type	Notes
   Text	string	Default for most string fields
   Number	number	Integer or decimal
   Boolean	boolean	true/false
   Date	date	Date only (no time)
   DateTime	datetime	Full timestamp
   Email	string	Validated email format
   File	file reference	Link to Stratus/File Store object

5. Save the table

6. ROWID is auto-created as the primary key — you cannot remove it

Enabling App User Insert / Update / Delete (Scopes and Permissions)

By default, App Users (logged-in users) cannot write to Data Store tables. You must enable it explicitly.

1. Console → your project → Data Store → click your table

2. Click Scopes and Permissions (gear icon or tab, depending on UI version)

3. You'll see a matrix of roles vs operations:

   Row	What it controls
   App User	Operations available to authenticated end users via Web/Mobile SDK
   App Administrator	Operations available to admin users

4. Check Insert, Update, Delete checkboxes in the App User row as needed

5. Click Save

If you don't enable Insert and try to call row.insert() from the Web SDK, you get a 403 error.

Authorized Domains + CORS Toggle

This controls which frontend origins are allowed to call your Catalyst functions via the API gateway.

1. Console → your project → Settings (gear icon in sidebar)
2. Click Authorized Domains
3. Click Add Domain
4. Enter the full origin with protocol: https://myapp-12345.catalystapps.com
   • Include https:// — bare domains are rejected
   • For local dev, add http://localhost:3000 separately
5. Toggle CORS to ON for the domain
6. Click Save

Once a domain is in the Authorized Domains list with CORS enabled, the Catalyst gateway automatically injects the correct Access-Control-Allow-Origin headers. You do NOT need CORS code in your functions for these production domains.

Connecting the Catalyst CLI to Your Project

After creating a project in the console, link it to a local directory:

cd my-app-folder
catalyst init
# or if project already exists:
catalyst project:use "My Project Name"

Verify the link:

cat catalyst.json        # should contain project_id and project_key
catalyst whoami          # shows logged-in user

Common Errors