context-and-tools

Serverless form handling on Netlify-hosted sites — detects HTML forms at deploy time, stores submissions, filters spam, and sends notifications. Use when adding a contact form, lead-capture form, file-upload form, or newsletter signup to a Netlify site; wiring AJAX form submission; setting up a custom thank-you page; adding a honeypot or reCAPTCHA to a form; getting forms working in Next.js, Nuxt, SvelteKit, Astro, or Gatsby; reading form submissions via the Netlify API; or debugging missing submissions and forms that silently fail to register.

Write, configure, and deploy Netlify Edge Functions (Deno runtime at the network edge) in TypeScript/JavaScript. Use when adding request/response manipulation at the edge — auth middleware, geolocation redirects, A/B testing and personalization, content localization, redirects/rewrites, SSR at the edge, or transforming responses — or when configuring path routing, response caching, or edge error handling. Triggers on tasks like "add auth middleware", "geo-based redirect", "A/B testing at the edge", "rewrite requests", or editing files in netlify/edge-functions.

Create and manage Netlify deploys — Git continuous deployment, CLI manual/anonymous deploys, Deploy to Netlify buttons, drag-and-drop, and per-context netlify.toml build settings. Use when linking a repo, deploying from the CLI, setting up Deploy Previews or branch deploys, configuring deploy contexts, adding skew protection, fixing a failed or secrets-flagged deploy, or wiring build hooks and Deploy to Netlify buttons.

Zero-config Postgres for Netlify apps via @netlify/database — querying data from Functions/Edge Functions, writing schema migrations, setting up Drizzle ORM, local dev with netlify dev, database branches for deploy previews, and migrating an existing Postgres project onto Netlify. Use when adding a database, building a contact form or CRUD API, writing SQL migrations, wiring up Drizzle, running netlify database commands, testing with a local Postgres, or switching from Neon/Supabase/RDS to Netlify Database.

Configure Netlify projects via netlify.toml and the _headers/_redirects files — covering build settings and deploy contexts alongside environment variables/scopes and the Secrets Controller plus redirect/rewrite/proxy and custom-header rules. Use when setting a build command or publish directory, adding redirect or rewrite or proxy rules, configuring custom headers or basic auth, setting or scoping environment variables and secrets, wiring up a monorepo or SPA fallback, or skipping unnecessary builds. Reach for this whenever you touch netlify.toml or ask "why is my env var undefined in a function" or "how do I redirect this path".

Cache dynamic and static responses on Netlify's CDN from Functions, Edge Functions, and proxies. Use when you add caching or cache-control headers to a function response, tune cache TTL or stale-while-revalidate, set up the durable cache, vary a cache key by query/header/cookie/country/language, purge or invalidate the cache by site or cache tag, use the programmatic Cache API (caches.open/match/put) or @netlify/cache helpers (fetchWithCache/cacheHeaders/getCacheStatus), speed up an expensive API call, add ISR or on-demand revalidation, or debug why a response is or isn't cached via the Cache-Status header.

Store and retrieve unstructured objects, file uploads, and cache-like state on Netlify using the @netlify/blobs key/value API from Functions, Edge Functions, and Build Plugins. Use when a task involves saving user file or image uploads, persisting form or contact-form submissions, storing generated output from Background Functions (sitemaps/processed media/bulk-email results), building read-only asset stores, adding client-side blob expiration, or wiring file-based blob uploads at deploy time. Not for per-user, transactional, or relational data (counters/balances/sessions) — reach for Netlify DB there instead.

Use OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, or OpenRouter models from Netlify Functions or Edge Functions without managing provider API keys or accounts — the gateway injects credentials automatically. Reach for this when you add an AI chatbot or completion endpoint, generate images or text with Gemini/GPT/Claude, summarize form submissions with AI, build an LLM-backed API route, stream a long AI generation, or wire up any server-side AI provider call on Netlify. Covers provider SDK setup, injected env vars, model availability, rate limits, credit costs, streaming for long generations, and local dev with netlify dev or the Vite plugin.

Create new skills, modify and improve existing skills, and measure skill performance. Use when users want to create a skill from scratch, edit, or optimize an existing skill, run evals to test a skill, benchmark skill performance with variance analysis, or optimize a skill's description for better triggering accuracy.