API & Integrations

Chinaski is built to be automated: a REST API for scripts and pipelines, outbound webhooks for other systems, and a Model Context Protocol server so AI assistants can work the CMS directly. This section covers all three.

In this section

• MCP Server: the Jinja JSON-RPC server over stdio that exposes the CMS to Claude Code and other MCP clients; setup, sessions, retries, and the tool families.
• MCP Tool Reference: the per-tool reference: arguments, behavior, and the higher-level composition tools.
• Webhooks: the four outbound event kinds (form, post, publish, build), payload shapes, signing, retries, and the delivery log.
• Automation: the machine API surface: API keys (read/write scopes, rate limits, expiry), the /api/* endpoints (reads, creates/updates, upserts, batch jobs, build triggers), and the health endpoints for monitors.

Two audiences, two doors

• Machines that want to script Chinaski talk REST with an API key: reads for reporting, create/update for pipelines, jobs for batch imports, and the build trigger. Everything is audited per key, and a key can be read- or write-scoped.
• Assistants that want to work the CMS go through the built-in MCP server, one process per project, JSON-RPC over stdio, backed by the same API key model; it layers higher-level tools (create-with-blocks, translate, bulk import, audits) on top of the REST verbs.

What’s outbound

The API surface also includes outbound webhooks, events the CMS sends to you: submissions, post changes, scheduled publishes, and finished builds, each signable with an HMAC secret. Air-gap mode disables all of it (and every other outbound call) until an integration is enabled deliberately.

What the API will not do

• No public comment/feed endpoints (those don’t exist).
• No DELETE verbs: removal stays in the admin UI to prevent accidental automation-induced data loss; publish state and trash remain manual or editor-level operations.
• No key-based admin-session impersonation: API keys do not carry user identity or roles; they act as their own actor in the audit trail.