---
title: "The Studio and the Runtime"
description: "gtable has two planes. Builders define apps in the Studio; invited people use them in their suite's Runtime. Each plane has its own API, MCP server and credentials."
canonical: "https://gtable.app/docs/start/studio-and-runtime"
updated: "2026-10-05"
---

# The Studio and the Runtime

gtable is two products built on one definition. The **Studio** is where an app is designed. The
**Runtime** is where the people invited into it use it. The app's definition lives beside its
data, so a published app keeps working without the Studio.

## Organisations, suites and apps

```text
organisation    who pays and who builds          builders sign in at studio.gtable.app
└── suite       a set of apps with ONE login     acme.gtable.app, or your own domain
    └── app     tables, permission rules, pages   acme.gtable.app/crm
```

A **suite** is a login boundary: its apps share one directory of people, one sign-in page and
one address. The same person in two suites is two accounts. An **app** lives under its suite's
address at its own path, so the CRM of the suite `acme` is `https://acme.gtable.app/crm`.

## The two planes

|             | **Studio (builder plane)**                 | **Runtime (app plane)**                                         |
| ----------- | ------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Who         | builders of an organisation                | people invited into a suite's apps                              |
| Signs in at | `studio.gtable.app`                        | the suite's own address                                         |
| REST        | `https://studio.gtable.app/v1`             | `https://{suite}.gtable.app/{app}/v1`                           |
| OpenAPI     | one public document, the same for everyone | one per app and per person, generated on request                |
| MCP         | `https://studio.gtable.app/mcp`            | `https://{suite}.gtable.app/mcp`, plus `/{app}/mcp` for one app |
| Credentials | builder keys and OAuth grants              | personal keys and OAuth grants, per suite                       |

**The planes are a wall, not a filter.** A key made in an app is not a weaker builder key: the
Studio does not recognise it at all (`401`), and the reverse is true too. An app credential can
never be granted a builder scope such as `schema:write`, so no consent screen can even offer an
end user's agent the power to change an app's structure.

**A builder is not automatically a member of their own apps.** The Studio reaches every record of
an app through its own routes (`/v1/apps/{appId}/tables/{tableId}/records`), with every write
recorded under the builder's name. Inside the app's Runtime, a builder is a person like any
other, and sees what their groups give them.

## Why an app has an API of its own

Every app answers its own API under its own path, and that API is shaped like the person
calling it:

- `GET /{app}/v1/openapi.json` is generated on each request from the schema **you** can see:
  your tables, and only the fields you can read. A table you cannot open is not in the document.
- The MCP tools you receive are built the same way. `tableId` is a closed list of your tables,
  and a record is typed with your readable fields only.
- A suite on its own domain serves the same paths there, with no `gtable.app` in them:
  `https://portal.example.com/crm/v1`.

That is why the [App API reference](/docs/app-api/records/list) on this site is a **generic
contract**: the operations and their shapes, with no table or field named. Your real document
is at `https://{suite}.gtable.app/{app}/v1/openapi.json`, behind your credential, and there is
no anonymous version of it.

The Studio's [Builder API](/docs/builder-api/apps/list) is the opposite case: it describes the
platform, not anybody's data, so its document is public at
`https://studio.gtable.app/v1/openapi.json` and is the same for every reader.

## One MCP server per suite

A suite answers MCP at `https://{suite}.gtable.app/mcp`, one address for every app of the suite
you belong to. Its first tool, `apps_list`, tells an agent which apps it can reach, and every
app tool takes an `appId`. Adding an app to the suite does not make anybody reconfigure their
client. `https://{suite}.gtable.app/{app}/mcp` serves a single app, which is the right address
for an integration that must touch that app and nothing else. See
[MCP servers](/docs/agents/overview).