Introduction to the Force.com Tooling API

The Force.com Tooling API enables the creation of developer productivity tools for the Force.com platform. With the Tooling API, features of tools such as the Force.com IDE are accessible to your own programs. This includes the ability to compile code, perform code completion in an editor, set breakpoints for debugging, and retrieve trace log results.

This section provides an introduction to Force.com Tooling API in two parts, described here:

1. Overview—Examine the high-level features of the Tooling API.

2. Getting started with the Force.com Tooling API—Build a working example of the Tooling API that allows you to edit and compile an Apex class within a Visualforce page.