The six surfaces
Build
Shape what your operators see. Layout editor, collection settings, fields and widgets, custom Smart Views, workspaces, search, pagination, layout versioning.
Execute
Operations your team performs daily, browsing records, triggering actions, exporting data, running workflows.
Manage
See what’s happening, dashboards, charts, activity logs, inboxes, and team performance views.
Collaborate
Coordinate on records, notes, mentions, and approval workflows.
Embed
Bring Forest into the tools your team and AI agents already use, MCP server, n8n node, Zendesk app.
Process (developer)
Customize the back-end in code, fields, actions, relationships, segments, hooks, and plugins.
Build, shape the interface
The Build surface is where you configure what operators see. Most of it is no-code.Layout editor
Visually customize collection views, detail pages, and forms.
Collection configuration
Display name, summary field, segments, filters, and per-collection action visibility.
Fields & widgets
Map field types to display and edit widgets, from text and numbers to images, JSON, and relationships.
Smart Views
Replace the default table with any UI, maps, calendars, galleries, kanban, using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.
Workspaces
Combine data and actions from multiple collections into a single page for an operational workflow.
Search & pagination
Configure how search behaves and how large collections paginate.
Execute, get work done
Browse
Filter, sort, and inspect records across your collections.
Actions
Trigger custom and built-in actions on single records, bulk selections, or at the collection level.
Workflows
Run multi-step operational processes, KYC reviews, refunds, onboarding, with a no-code editor.
Export
Export collection data to CSV.
Manage, see what’s happening
Dashboards
Combine charts to monitor KPIs and operational metrics.
Charts
Single value, repartition, time-based, percentage, objective, and leaderboard charts, with simple or SQL-based configuration.
Activity logs
Every action taken in Forest, with full audit context.
Inbox
Distribute work to your team, review queues, escalations, and assigned records.
Team performance
Track team productivity and bottlenecks across operations.
Collaborate, work as a team
Notes
Leave contextual notes on records and mention teammates.
Approval workflows
Require sign-off from another team member before sensitive actions execute.
Embed, bring Forest into the tools your operators and back-ends use
MCP server
Expose Forest data and workflows to AI agents via the Model Context Protocol, with permissions and audit trails preserved.
n8n node
Trigger Forest actions and access data from n8n workflows.
Zendesk app
Surface Forest records inside Zendesk tickets.
Process, customize the back-end in code
This is where developers extend Forest’s behavior beyond the no-code surface.Fields
Computed fields, validation, write behavior, filtering and sorting on any field.
Actions
Custom actions in code, dynamic forms, multi-step logic, file generation, custom result types.
Relationships
Cross-database relationships, computed foreign keys, external API-backed relationships.
Segments
No-code and code-based segments to slice your collections.
Workflows
Configure no-code workflow steps that combine data, actions, and AI.
Hooks & plugins
Intercept CRUD operations and package reusable customizations.
Looking for the API or CLI?
Configuration happens here. Reference documentation lives in Reference, the Node.js and Ruby back-end SDKs, the public API, the Forest CLI, and the.forestadmin-schema.json format.