Tools Overview

Tools are actions a voice agent can take during a call: hanging up, transferring to a person, searching your knowledge base, or calling your own API. The agent’s AI decides when to use a tool based on the conversation and the tool’s description — so a well-written description matters as much as the tool’s settings. Open an agent and go to the Tools tab.

​

System tools and custom tools

The Tools tab has two lists: Switch between the two lists with the System tools and Custom tools tabs above the list. The Custom tools tab shows how many you have.

• System Tools — every built-in tool, what it does on a call, and its settings.
• Custom Tools — how to connect your own API and how requests are built.

If your workspace has the tools library enabled, the Tools tab has a third list, Library, for tools shared across agents — see Library tools below.

​

Library tools

Where system and custom tools belong to one agent, a library tool is built once and attached to any number of voice and chat agents. Editing it updates every agent that uses it. Find the library at Tools in the sidebar — “Reusable tools your voice and chat agents can call. Build once, attach to any agent.”

​

What’s in the library

The Tools page lists every library tool with its type, who created it, and actions. Search by name, or filter by Type (Webhook, Integration, MCP, Interactive UI), Source (a specific connected app or MCP server), or Creator. Add tool offers:

​

Attaching a library tool to an agent

On an agent’s Tools tab, open Library. If nothing is attached yet: “No library tools attached. Tools created on the Tools page can be shared across agents and edited in one place.” Click Add from library, or New from integration… to create and attach one without leaving the agent. Attach library tools lists every library tool with the same search and type filters as the Tools page; check the ones you want and click Attach N tool(s). A tool whose name collides with one of the agent’s own system or custom tools can’t be attached — “This agent already has its own tool with this name.” Each attached tool has a switch to enable or disable it for that agent without detaching it, and a Detach button to remove the reference. Its settings are read-only from the agent page — “Shared with every agent that attaches it” — edit it from the Tools page instead.

​

Sharing an existing custom tool

An agent’s own custom tool can be promoted into the library with Move to shared tools: “It becomes one tool other agents can attach and everyone edits in one place. This agent keeps working — it points at the shared tool from now on.” If a library tool of the same name and type already exists, you’re asked to use it, overwrite it, or keep both as separate tools; a name that collides with a different tool type must be renamed.

​

Testing a tool

A library tool’s settings panel has a Test tool button:

• Preflight validates and renders the request — method, URL, headers, and body with your test values filled in — without calling the real endpoint.
• Run for real, shown once preflight succeeds, sends the request to the actual target after you confirm the call is real and can’t be undone. It runs exactly once.

​

Archiving

Removing a library tool archives it rather than deleting it: “Agents still referencing it will skip it until you attach a replacement. The tool is archived, not deleted, and its name becomes reusable.”

​

Writing tool descriptions

Every tool has a Name and a Description. The description is the only guidance the agent gets about the tool, so write it as an instruction:

• When to use the tool — “Use this when the caller asks for a real person.”
• What to say first, if anything — “Tell the caller you’re checking before calling this tool.”
• What not to do — “Don’t use this for billing questions.”

System tools come with a default description you can edit. Spaces in a tool’s name are turned into underscores as you type; give each tool a short, unique name.

​

Adding, saving, and removing tools

• Turn a system tool on with its switch, or click Add custom tool. The tool is added to the agent immediately with its default settings.
• Configure it in the panel on the right and click Save.
• Add another instance of a transfer or knowledge base search with the + button on its card. Rename each instance so their names stay unique.
• Turn a system tool off with its switch. A Disable tool dialog asks you to confirm — its settings are lost.
• Delete a custom tool (or an extra instance) with the trash icon.

​

Tools on new agents

New voice agents start with End call and Detect voicemail turned on. Search knowledge base appears and disappears on its own as you attach and remove knowledge base documents.

​

Multi-prompt agents

• The Tools tab sets global tools, available in every state of the conversation.
• Per-state tools are set in the Agent tab’s workflow editor: select a state and use the tools section in its side panel. Save the workflow to keep the changes.

Selecting a state opens its side panel, with the same System tools and Custom tools lists as the Tools tab — above, Search knowledge base is on for the Starting State. The panel’s Global Node switch makes the state callable from every other state, for shared sub-flows such as a transfer. Static-sentence states can’t have tools. Don’t give a global tool and a state tool the same name.

​

Voice and chat

Tools are configured in the dashboard (or with Conductor); they can’t be set up through the API.