Zoho adds AI tools to Catalyst cloud platform

Zoho has upgraded its Catalyst cloud development platform with tools aimed at solving one of the biggest problems created by AI-assisted coding: moving generated code reliably into production.

The additions include Agent Skills, a non-interactive command-line interface and Model Context Protocol support. Catalyst also integrates with AI coding assistants including Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex, allowing developers to work from existing environments rather than switching constantly between tools.

Zoho Nigeria Country Head Kehinde Ogundare said AI coding assistants had accelerated application development, but deployment still created friction. “Developers still spend significant time managing infrastructure and bringing together separate cloud services,” he said. “With Catalyst, we are reducing that friction by providing an agent-ready, serverless full-stack platform that helps developers build, deploy and scale intelligent applications with greater control and less operational overhead.”

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Developers still spend significant time managing infrastructure and bringing together separate cloud services.

Zoho said Catalyst Agent Skills give coding assistants context about the platform’s services, architecture and recommended development patterns. The CLI can run multi-step workflows without manual input at every stage, while the Catalyst MCP server lets assistants access platform capabilities directly from environments such as VS Code, Claude Code and Cursor. Developers can create database tables and add columns without opening the Catalyst console.

The company has open-sourced its AI skills repository, as well as Catalyst’s software development kit, CLI and Slyte JavaScript framework. Zoho said Catalyst would still keep production deployments under human control. Development and production remain separate, code requires manual promotion, and AI agents cannot directly access production environments. Collaborator controls, audit trails and logs track activity involving applications, the platform and MCP tools.

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With Catalyst, we are reducing that friction by providing an agent-ready, serverless full-stack platform that helps developers build, deploy and scale intelligent applications with greater control and less operational overhead.