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Cargo hosts two kinds of custom code alongside your resources: workers (serverless edge HTTP handlers) and apps (Vite single-page apps served on *.cargo.app). defineWorker and defineApp deploy a source bundle directory that Cargo Hosting builds on deploy.

Define a worker

workers/webhook.ts

Define an app

apps/dashboard.ts
Cargo validates the required bundle files exist at define time, so a missing file fails in plan.

Environment variables

A worker reads its variables from c.env, an app from import.meta.env.VITE_*. Both are baked in when the deployment is built, so a change needs a redeploy. Set them on the resource — through env above, or its Environment tab in the Cargo app — or once for the whole workspace under Settings → Environment, which every worker and app inherits without declaring anything. A key set on the resource overrides the workspace value; an app only inherits non-secret VITE_ keys, since its bundle is served to the browser. See Secrets & environments. Because the inheritance is automatic, a resource’s env takes env() or secret() and not workspaceEnv() — declaring a pointer here would only restate a variable the worker or app already receives. Leave a workspace variable out of env entirely.
defineWorker/defineApp are the deployable resource (the hosted slot). Author the worker’s runtime code in TypeScript with createWorker from @cargo-ai/worker-sdk at src/index.ts — bundles are uploaded as source and built server-side: the hosting build runs npm ci then esbuilds the worker entrypoint (esbuild transpiles TypeScript natively) or vite build for apps. A pre-built index.js at the bundle root is still accepted for backwards compatibility. Bundle sub-directories have their own package.json, so the loader treats them as content to upload, not resource files to import.

Cron triggers

A worker can be called on a schedule: each trigger describes the full request Cargo fires — cron (or Temporal’s @every shorthand), path, method (default POST), a JSON body, and headers. Set an authorization header and guard the route with standard Hono middleware (bearerAuth/basicAuth); ticks only fire once the worker has a promoted deployment. Triggers can be set from the worker’s page in the Cargo app, via defineWorker (above), or with the CLI/API:

Calling the Cargo API

Create a workspace API token and add it to the worker as a CARGO_API_TOKEN secret environment variable — the Cargo API host is allowed without an outboundAllowlist entry. createCargoApi(env) from @cargo-ai/worker-sdk returns the fully-typed @cargo-ai/api client:

Custom integrations

A worker that serves the Custom Integration HTTP contract (createCustomIntegration from @cargo-ai/worker-sdk) can be registered in the connector catalog declaratively:

Scaffolding and deploying standalone

You can also scaffold and ship bundles directly with the CLI:
Slugs are kebab-case and must start with a letter (my-worker).