Collections

Maya's product card does not have to start on the Collections page. An agent signed in as her can create it, change the layout and the styles, and publish the shared draft to Staging. It is the same collection, and it asks for the same Collection Access. The page is still the better door when she wants the canvas.

What you can do

Maya already has a homepage hero. The product card on that hero — image, name, price — is a collection. On the Collections page she would open the environment, choose Add, and build the card in the composer. From an agent she names the team, the project, and the environment, and asks for the card. It lands on the same list.

The page is the better door for some jobs. The agent is better for others.

Use the agent when the card is a repeat of one she can describe: a name, a row, a style token, a publish to Staging. You stay in the conversation.
Use the Collections page when you want the canvas, when you are dragging the card onto the hero, or when you are choosing shared versus embedded while looking at the page.

A shared card is one source. Change it and every page that still points at it changes. An embedded card belongs to one parent. The spring-sale hero keeps its own copy. That choice is the same one the composer offers under Modify Shared Collection and Make Embedded Copy And Modify.

The same collection, the same permission

The agent does not get a side door. It acts as the RuleCMS account that signed in when you connected MCP.

Collection Access → View can list collections and open one, including its styles. Manage can create a collection, rename it, change the layout, and change those styles. Admin is the same edit rights plus deletion in the dashboard. Staging and Production have their own Collection Access groups when those environments should be edited by different people.

Publishing is not inside Collection Access, not even Admin. It uses the same utility groups as a widget: Post Publish To Staging and Post Publish To Production. Promoting a draft to the next environment uses Post Promote To Staging and Post Promote To Production. Reading the published snapshot uses View Published Resource In Staging or View Published Resource In Production. A teammate who can edit the draft and still cannot publish will get the same refusal from the agent as from the Publish tab.

Build the product card

She is signed in as herself, and she has Manage on this environment. The card is new. Nothing is published yet.

Connect RuleCMS in the agent, if you have not. The steps are on MCP.
Tell the agent the team, the project, and the environment. Staging is the environment that can be published. Development is where you compose before you promote.
Ask for a collection named Product card. The name is optional. Leave it out and RuleCMS assigns one. A name you choose is letters, numbers, and spaces, at most 100 characters. The list shows that name. The address underneath is the same words in lowercase, with hyphens.
Ask for the layout: one row, one column, ready for the card. An empty collection cannot be dropped onto a page, so give it at least a row before you reuse it.
Open the environment Collections card. The product card is there. Dropping it onto the hero is still the composer. Nothing is on the live site until she publishes.

Two collections in the same environment cannot share a name. Ask for a different name, or leave the name blank and take the one RuleCMS assigns.

Publish it to Staging

The card is a shared draft on the Staging environment. Publishing makes the snapshot other widgets can reference. It does not happen from Development. Promote the draft to Staging first when you composed it there. Promote copies the draft. It does not publish. Also say whether to update shared collections. No keeps ones that already exist in the destination. Yes refreshes them. Embedded collections always come along.

Tell the agent which collection, and that this is Staging. She needs Post Publish To Staging. A short label for this release is optional.
Ask the agent to read the published collection on Staging. The first publish is version 1.0.0. If she has never published this card, a check can say it is not published yet instead of failing. That check needs View Published Resource In Staging.
History on that published key lists the versions. Republishing an older version, or restoring one into the draft, needs a version from that history. Restore does not publish. An embedded card is not published on its own. It rides with its parent.

Production is the same shape, with Post Publish To Production and View Published Resource In Production, and only from the Production environment. The snapshot workflow is Publishing. If the project requires approval, the agent submits instead of publishing, and an approver still has to approve with their own sign-in. That guide is Approvals.

When you reach for it

What you need	When you reach for it
Styles	Tokens, classes, fonts, keyframes, a dark theme, typed properties, widget chrome, cascade layer, and position-try. Each one can be read with View and saved with Manage. Saving a slice can also set whether that slice is included when widgets publish. Replacing the whole catalog replaces every slice. An empty catalog clears the styles. The include switches stay as they were.
Tailwind	Preview first. That does not change the collection. Writing generates the catalog from the card. A pasted Tailwind theme is optional. A dry run previews that paste without saving it.
Sync from the project	The project already has a CSS catalog and this card should take some of it. You can limit the kinds, such as only variables. If the project has no catalog, nothing changes.
Make a Copy	A second shared card in the same environment, with a new name. An embedded card cannot be copied on its own. Copy it with its parent.
Make Embedded Copy	This hero needs a private variant. Name the shared card, the parent, and the row and column that should hold the copy. The parent can be a widget or a collection.
Copy To	A fork on an extra environment you named yourself. Staging and Production are the promote path, not Copy To.
Dependencies	Every collection inside this one, before a publish. The same question exists for a published collection and for one published version. You name the draft, the published key, or the version.

Names you may see

You do not have to type these. They are the labels in the agent's tool list, if you open it. Creating and editing still check Collection Access. Publishing still checks the utility group for that environment.

What you asked for	The tool
Create the card	`post_t_teamId_p_projectId_e_environmentId_collections`
Rename it or change the layout	`put_t_teamId_p_projectId_e_environmentId_collections_collectionId`
Publish the shared draft to Staging	`post_t_teamId_p_projectId_e_environmentId_collections_publish_to_staging`
Read that published collection	`get_t_teamId_p_projectId_e_environmentId_published_collections_staging_publishedKey`

When it does not land

What you see	What it usually means
The agent says you cannot change this collection	This account is not in the team, or it has View without Manage. The Collections page would refuse the same edit.
The name was rejected	It is longer than 100 characters, it contains something other than letters, numbers, and spaces, or this environment already has that name.
Publish says the environment does not match	Publish to Staging only runs on the Staging environment. Publish to Production only runs on Production. Development is promote, then publish from Staging.
It is not published yet	The draft exists and no snapshot does. Publish the shared card, then read it again. An embedded card does not have its own snapshot.