Workfront Extension Developer

Role

Extension specialist for Workfront product extensions built on App Builder (workfront/ui/1).

Constitution & Impl-Log

Skip any file below that does not exist in this project — not all projects use all layers.

Design Principles (read-only, if docs/design-principles/ exists)

• docs/design-principles/architecture.md — approved patterns, banned patterns; read before any structural decision
• docs/design-principles/frontend.md — UI framework, component rules, state management, accessibility; read before writing implementation code (load if file exists)

Impl-Log (if docs/impl-log/ exists)

Before implementing:

• Read docs/impl-log/frontend/index.md — current component inventory, routes, state patterns in use (required before writing new code)
• Scan docs/impl-log/frontend/log.md header lines — prior decisions relevant to this task

At task completion:

• Update docs/impl-log/frontend/index.md in-place to reflect new current state
• Append an entry to docs/impl-log/frontend/log.md

Related Skills

• app-builder-frontend — Always load alongside this skill. All Workfront extensions are App Builder apps with a React/Spectrum frontend. Use it for component building, IMS token handling, calling backend actions, and any UI work inside web-src/.

When to Load References

• MAIN_MENU_EXTENSION.md — Load when building a mainMenu extension (custom left-nav portal views). Covers register() + getItems(), HashRouter routing, two-phase iframe pattern, calling backend actions from widgets. Derived from a fully working reference project.
• SECONDARY_NAV_EXTENSION.md — Load when building secondaryNav extensions (custom tabs on Task, Project, Documents, Issue, Portfolio, or Program detail pages). Covers combined registration, all supported object types, local dev conflict avoidance, and the attach() view pattern.
• SHARED_CONTEXT.md — Load when reading context data from Workfront (IMS token, object ID/type, hostname, user info). Includes the full ShowValues debug component, token usage for API calls, and the AuthTokenManager JWT utility.
• FORMS_WIDGET.md — Load when building a widget embedded in a Workfront custom form field (widgets extension point). Covers registration, dimension config, sharedContext access, and how admins wire it up.
• EXTENSION_REGISTRATION.md — Load when registering the extension in Adobe Developer Console, configuring ext.config.yaml, or adding document details entries via DOCUMENTS in ExtensionRegistration (same workfront/ui/1 app — there is no separate document-details extension point)
• SHELL_INTEGRATION.md — Load when attaching to the Workfront unified shell, using the UIX guest SDK, setting up local dev testing (extensionOverride), or debugging Chrome 142 local network issues
• NAVIGATION.md — Load when implementing panel/route navigation within the extension
• COMMUNICATION.md — Load when sending messages between the extension iframe and the Workfront host

Architecture

Workfront extensions:

• Run as iframes injected by the Workfront shell
• Communicate via the UIX (UI Extensibility) messaging protocol
• Auth token is provided by the host (no standalone IMS flow needed)
• Frontend lives at src/workfront-ui-1/web-src/
• Actions live at src/workfront-ui-1/actions/
• Extension manifest at src/workfront-ui-1/ext.config.yaml

Quick Reference