Tools

Tools are the verbs. Without tools, agents can only think. With tools, they can act.

A tool is any function an agent can call to produce a side effect or pull information: search the web, read a file, open a pull request, generate an image, query a dataset, send a Slack message. Most of Busy Bee's value comes from tools, without them, your agents are smart chatbots; with them, they're a working team.

Built-in tools

A non-exhaustive catalog:

Web search - query the live web, pull results, summarize.
Web fetch - read a specific URL.
Image generation - Qwen and (where licensed) GPT-Image. Used by Designer and Marketing roles.
Code execution - run Python or JavaScript in a sandbox. Used for data analysis, transforms, and one-off scripts.
File operations - read and write files inside the sandbox (Builder mode).
GitHub - read repos, open PRs, leave reviews, merge approved changes.
Data tools - list datasets, describe a dataset, query SQL, generate reports.
Task tools - task_search, create_task_for_team, get_task_details, etc. Agents use these to coordinate with other agents.
Question tools - ask_user_question for when an agent needs clarification mid-task.
Memory tools - read and write to long-term memory (see Memory).

Connector-backed tools (Slack, Notion, Google Workspace, Asana, etc.) come from the Connectors you've wired up.

How agents pick tools

Queen Bee doesn't tell agents which tools to use, agents decide based on the task. When you ask a Researcher to "profile [Company]," the agent will reach for web search, web fetch, and possibly Slack (to check recent internal chatter). The agent picks; you don't have to spec it out.

You can constrain the picker by limiting an agent's tool access. An agent without GitHub tools can't open PRs, even if asked. This is how you enforce least-privilege.

Granting and revoking tools

On the agent's settings page, you'll see two columns: tools the role grants by default, and tools you've added or removed for this specific agent. To add a tool: click the toggle next to it. To revoke: click the toggle off.

📸 Screenshot: the agent's tool-access panel with several toggles visible.

Tools that depend on connectors (GitHub, Slack, etc.) will be greyed out until the connector is wired up at the workspace level.

Approval gates on dangerous tools

Some tools are gated by an approval step regardless of agent or workspace config:

PR merges - always require explicit human approval before they execute.
Email sends - drafts visible, sends gated.
Code execution against production resources - gated and logged.
File deletes - gated.

The agent will draft the action and pause the task in AWAITING_APPROVAL. You sign off; it proceeds. You decline; it doesn't.

Custom tools (MCP)

If you need a tool that doesn't exist in the built-in catalog, spin up a Model Context Protocol server, register it as a connector, and Busy Bee will expose its functions as tools. See Connectors for the setup pattern.

What's next

Tools are how agents act. Memory is how they keep what they learn between actions.