Question

I want to create an admin controller – without having any menu items associated with it.

Ideally I want to have my controller accessible via /index.php/admin/my_controller/.

So far I have rewritten the adminhtml controller as follows but i simnply get a 404 inside the admin console (i.e. not the main 404 page):

    <admin>
    <routers> 
        <my_module>
            <use>admin</use>
            <args>
                <module>Me_Mymodule</module>
                <frontName>my_controller</frontName>
            </args>
        </my_module>
         <adminhtml>
            <args>
                <modules>
                    <my_module after="Mage_Adminhtml">Me_Mymodule</my_module>
                </modules>
            </args>
        </adminhtml>
    </routers>
</admin>

Answer 1

For you goal xml config is redundant.
Use following to add your controller to /admin frontname

Company_Module_Adminhtml

Now every controller that will be created in controller/Adminhtml folder will accessed through admin like

/admin/yourfilename/index

The class name of controller should be Module_Module_Adminhtml_YourfilenameController and should extend Mage_Adminhtml_Controller_Action
That’s the trick.