Hosted Apps

The Hosted Apps contract, covering the manifest, the runtime, the bundle rules and the limits

Private Preview: Hosted Apps is available to selected accounts during its Private Preview. To request access, contact your CARTO representative.

Hosted Apps serves a static frontend under /app/<slug>/, to the signed-in users of your organization that the app is shared with. The app reads the user's own access token from ./carto-info.json and calls the CARTO APIs directly.

These pages describe what CARTO reads when you deploy an app, what it serves at runtime, and the rules and limits it enforces. To get started, see Hosting your first application and the Hosting your application in CARTO guide. For how hosting fits with the rest of CARTO for Developers, see Hosted Apps in Key concepts. For every command and flag, see the app command reference.

Page	Contents
App manifest (carto.json)	Every field of the manifest: connections, Named Sources and declared APIs.
Runtime and authentication	How an app is opened, the carto-info.json contract, sessions, sharing and versions.
Bundle requirements and limits	What a valid bundle looks like, the enforced limits, and the response headers and CSP.
Limitations	What is and is not supported.

Requirements

Requirement	Detail
CARTO CLI	v0.12.0 or later. Apps are deployed with the CLI; see Installation.
Account	Hosted Apps enabled for your account (Private Preview).
Users	A CARTO user in the same organization. There is no anonymous access.

Glossary

Term	Meaning
slug	The app's identifier in its URL, unique in your organization. It is the <slug> in /app/<slug>/.
bundle	The directory of built files that CARTO serves, with index.html at its root.
version	One deploy of the bundle. Every deploy creates a version; deployed versions cannot be changed, and exactly one of them is active.
manifest	carto.json at the root of the bundle. Read when you deploy, and never served.
carto-info.json	The file CARTO serves to each user next to the app, with their access token and the API base URL. A reserved filename.
Named Source	A parametrized SQL query stored in CARTO and run by name, so the SQL is not sent to the browser. A hosted app's are registered as <slug>_<key>.
sharing	Who can open the app: your organization, or specific groups and users. An app that is not shared is private to its owner.
owner	The user who deployed the app. Only the owner can redeploy, share, roll back or delete it.