Give your agent tools
Add tools so your agent can take actions, not just answer questions.
Intermediate · ~10 min · Prerequisites: a draft agent
Building and editing agents is admin-only. Members can run and observe agents, but only admins can create or change them.
What you'll do
Open the Tools section of the agent builder, add the right built-in and internal tools for the job, and verify they fire correctly in the test panel.
Open Tools
Go to /admin/agents/<slug>/edit and click the Tools section in the editor sidebar. You'll see a list of available built-in and internal tools your org has enabled. Tools turn a conversational agent into one that can take real actions — searching your knowledge base, creating tasks, sending notifications, and more. See Tools for the full catalog.
Add built-in & internal tools
Built-in tools are workspace actions Opisense exposes directly — things like searching documents, reading calendar events, or creating tasks. To add one:
- Click + Add tool in the Tools section.
- Browse or search the list by name or category.
- Click a tool to add it. It appears in the agent's active tool list immediately.
Add only the tools the role actually needs. An agent that has access to everything is harder to instruct, harder to test, and harder to scope safely.
Prefer named, scoped tools over broad ones. "Create task in project X" is safer and more predictable than a general write-anything tool.
Match tools to the role
Think of tools the way you'd think of job responsibilities. A Research Analyst agent needs search and read tools; it doesn't need tools that create or delete content. A Support Triage agent needs to read tickets and update statuses — not to send emails or schedule meetings.
Before adding a tool, ask: does this agent's role actually require this action? If not, leave it out. You can always add more tools later and publish a new version — see Versions & publishing.
Test the tools
Open the test panel (the slide-in panel from the right side of the editor) and send a prompt that should trigger one of your tools. Watch whether the tool call appears in the test trace. If a tool fires but returns unexpected results, check that the tool's parameters match what your instructions tell the agent to pass.
Test panel conversations are isolated — they don't appear in members' histories or analytics. Iterate freely. When the tools behave as expected, save the draft and continue to Test before you publish for a full pre-publish validation pass.