Tools
Give your agents the right capabilities by enabling and configuring the tools they need.
Tools are the capabilities that let your agent actually do things. Without tools, an agent can only chat. With tools, it can search documents, send emails, generate files, analyze data, and much more.
Think of tools like apps on a phone — each one adds a specific ability. You pick the ones your agent needs for its role and leave the rest turned off.
Browsing available tools
Open your agent's settings and navigate to the Tools tab. You'll see a list of all available tools, organized by category. Each tool has a name, a short description, and a toggle to enable or disable it.
Common tool categories include:
- Search & retrieval — Search through documents, knowledge bases, and connected data sources
- Communication — Send emails, post messages, or create notifications
- Content generation — Draft text, generate summaries, or create formatted reports
- Data & analysis — Process numbers, analyze trends, and pull insights from structured data
- Integrations — Connect to external services and APIs your team uses
Enabling and disabling tools
To give your agent a new capability, simply toggle the tool on. To remove one, toggle it off. Changes take effect immediately — there's no need to restart or redeploy anything.
Start with fewer tools and add more as needed. An agent with too many tools can get confused about which one to use. Keep it focused on what's relevant to its role.
How tools affect behavior
The tools you enable directly shape what your agent can do in a conversation. When someone asks your agent a question, it evaluates its available tools to decide the best way to respond.
For example, if your agent has the document search tool enabled and someone asks "What's our refund policy?", the agent will search your connected knowledge base and provide an answer grounded in real documents. Without that tool, it would rely only on its instructions and general knowledge.
Here's a quick way to think about it:
| Scenario | Without tools | With tools |
|---|---|---|
| "Find last month's report" | Can't access documents | Searches knowledge base and returns the report |
| "Email the team an update" | Can draft text but can't send | Composes and sends the email |
| "Summarize our Q3 numbers" | Can give general advice | Pulls real data and generates an accurate summary |
Best practices
- Match tools to the role. A support agent needs search and communication tools. A report writer needs data analysis and content generation. Don't give every agent every tool.
- Review tool usage regularly. Check your agent's analytics to see which tools get used and which don't. Remove unused ones to keep things clean.
- Test after changes. Whenever you add or remove tools, have a quick conversation with your agent to make sure it still behaves as expected.