CUSTOM OBJECTS
Your workspace changes while you use it.
A field is missing, you add it. No ticket, no developer, no release.
Two layers, two regimes
Your engineering team declares a foundation in code: the structural objects and the fields the automations depend on. The platform marks them as its own and refuses to let them change at runtime, only the boot sync touches them. On top comes what you add, stored in the database rather than in code, and answerable to you.
Protected does not mean frozen
The protection on a code-defined field does not cover the whole field, only what would break something. The technical name and the type never move, on any field. Behaviour is locked on code-defined fields: required, unique, default value, order. Presentation is always yours, even on those: label, description, help text, icon. You dislike the word your developers picked, you rename it.
Identity
The technical name and the type. Never editable, on any field.
Behaviour
Required, unique, default value, order. Locked on code-defined fields.
Presentation
Label, description, help text, icon. Always yours.
An object can be sealed
Some objects must accept no extra field at all: an accounting entry, an audit trace, anything whose shape is imposed from outside. Code can seal them, and the platform then refuses the addition instead of accepting it and complaining later. Customisation is open by default and closed where there is a reason, not the other way round.
One list, several readings
The same set of records reads as a table when you are checking contact details, and as a kanban when you are following progress. Two layouts of one list, not two copies to keep in sync. A list carries tabs, and each tab takes its own layout, columns, filters and sorting. A filter changes what you see, never what is stored.
How it works
Tracking a case status that did not exist last week.
You open the object. The fields from code and yours appear on the same screen.
You add the field. A name, a choice type, and its possible values.
You set the views. A kanban tab grouped on that status, next to the table tab.
It is live. Your colleagues see it with no redeployment and no scheduled migration.