hdls Forms

hdls Forms is a headless, MCP-native forms & surveys backend. It manages forms, questions, and submissions, operated entirely through named tools your AI assistant calls. It stands in for tools like Typeform, Google Forms — same job, no UI to run.

💬 Just ask

"Create a form for Acme, then show me my forms."

You don't call these tools yourself — just tell your assistant in plain English. Everything below is the reference for when you (or your assistant) want the exact details.

How Forms is organized

The headline entity is the form — start there, then attach the rest to it. Records connect by reference: a question links to a form. The response table is an append-only timeline — every change and note lands there and is never edited or deleted.

Entity	Purpose	Relates to
`form`	A form/survey definition that owns its questions and collects responses.	—
`question`	An ordered field belonging to a form; type drives rendering and validation.	`form`
`response`	Append-only: one submission of a form; answers stored as child rows + denormalized data map.	`form`
`answer`	Append-only single answer to one question within a response; enables per-question analysis.	`response`, `question`

Common workflows

Each line is one real sequence of tool calls — your assistant chains them for you.

Set up a form end to end: create_form → add_question → submit_response
Move a form through its lifecycle: create_form → submit_response
Find a record and read the full picture: list_responses → summarize_responses

Tools

Call these at https://hdls.ai/api/mcp/forms. Required fields you must supply; optional fields refine the call. You never pass tenant_id — it is stamped server-side.

Create

Tool	What it does	Required	Optional
`create_form`	Create a new form.	`title`	`description`, `slug`, `status`, `is_public`, `settings`, `data`

Update & advance

Tool	What it does	Required	Optional
`add_question`	Add a question.	`form_id`, `label`	`help_text`, `type`, `position`, `required`, `options`, `data`
`submit_response`	Submit a response.	`form_id`	`respondent`, `status`, `source`, `ip_address`, `submitted_at`, `data`

Find & read

Tool	What it does	Required	Optional
`list_responses`	Search responses by free-text and/or column filters (tenant-scoped, paginated).	—	`search`, `filters`, `limit`, `orderBy`
`summarize_responses`	Fetch a response plus its most recent timeline activity in one call.	`id`	`activityLimit`

Field lists come from the product's live schema and are embedded in each tool's own description — read the tool description for the exact, current fields.

Field reference

Every field you can set on each record. Custom fields you add live alongside these in data.

`form`

Field	Type	Required	Notes
`title`	text	Yes	Display name.
`description`	text
`slug`	text
`status`	text		Lifecycle state.
`is_public`	true / false
`settings`	json
`data`	json		Free-form JSON — custom fields live here.

`question`

Field	Type	Required	Notes
`form_id`	id	Yes	Links to a `form`.
`label`	text	Yes
`help_text`	text
`type`	text
`position`	number
`required`	true / false
`options`	json
`data`	json		Free-form JSON — custom fields live here.

Tailor it with custom fields

Add fields without a schema change. add_custom_field defines one, list_custom_fields shows what's defined, and promote_custom_field (admin) shares a personal field with the whole workspace. The value lives in each row's data (JSON) and is set and read through the normal record tools. See Products, tools & custom fields for the full model.

Roles & safety

Tenant isolation is automatic. Your credential is pinned to one workspace; you never pass tenant_id, and you can only ever see your own data (enforced by Postgres row-level security).
Role-gated. Permissions run reader < member < admin < owner. Installing a product and promoting a custom field workspace-wide need admin/owner.
History is append-only. The response timeline is never edited or deleted — it's your audit trail.

Connect

On the concierge (https://hdls.ai/api/mcp), run install_product({ slug: "forms" }) (admin/owner) to enable it for your workspace, then add https://hdls.ai/api/mcp/forms as a connector in your assistant — see Connect your assistant.

A worked example

The literal call your assistant makes when you ask it to create the headline record:

Tool: create_form
Arguments: {
  "title": "Customer satisfaction survey"
}

See All products · Connect your assistant · Automation