receiving, at a declarative application programming interface (API), a request to configure a connect cluster comprising one or more connectors for a cloud computing system, the request including a particular state and a schema defined by a user for the connect cluster;

in response to receiving the request, automatically generating a connector specification file based on the particular state and schema defined by the user that triggers installation of one or more connector plugins, the connector specification file including a list of the one or more connector plugins;

automatically configuring application resources associated with the connect cluster based on the connector specification file, the automatically configuring including causing download and installation of the one or more connector plugins;

detecting a connector in the connect cluster being in a failed state; and

in response to detecting the connector being in the failed state, attempting to restart the connector via the declarative API.