> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.thinnest.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Tools Overview

> Give your AI agents the ability to take actions, fetch data, and interact with external services using tools.

# Tools

Tools are the capabilities you give your AI agents. They allow agents to go beyond conversation — searching the web, reading spreadsheets, sending emails, booking appointments, and interacting with any external API.

## How Tools Work

When you assign tools to an agent, here's what happens during a conversation:

1. **The agent receives a message** from a user or caller.
2. **The agent decides** whether it needs to use a tool to answer the question or complete a task.
3. **The agent calls the tool** with the appropriate parameters.
4. **The tool executes** — making an API call, querying a database, or performing an action.
5. **The agent receives the result** and uses it to formulate its response.

The agent handles all of this automatically. You just need to assign the right tools and the agent figures out when and how to use them.

## Assigning Tools to an Agent

### From the Dashboard

1. Navigate to **Agents** and select your agent (or create a new one).
2. Scroll to the **Tools** section.
3. Click **Add Tool** to browse available tools.
4. Select a tool, configure its settings (API keys, permissions, etc.).
5. Save the agent.

Your agent can have multiple tools assigned simultaneously. It will choose the right tool based on the conversation context.

### Via the API

You can also assign tools when creating or updating an agent through the API:

```bash theme={null}
curl -X POST https://api.thinnest.ai/agents \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "Research Assistant",
    "instructions": "You help users research topics using web search and Wikipedia.",
    "tools": [
      { "type": "duckduckgo" },
      { "type": "wikipedia" }
    ]
  }'
```

## Tool Execution Flow

```
User asks: "What's the weather in Tokyo?"
         │
         ▼
┌─────────────────────┐
│  Agent processes     │
│  the message         │
└─────────┬───────────┘
          │ Agent decides it needs weather data
          ▼
┌─────────────────────┐
│  Agent calls the     │
│  OpenWeather tool    │
│  with city: "Tokyo"  │
└─────────┬───────────┘
          │ Tool returns weather data
          ▼
┌─────────────────────┐
│  Agent formats the   │
│  response naturally  │
│  "It's 22°C in       │
│   Tokyo today..."    │
└─────────────────────┘
```

## Tool Categories

thinnestAI provides a wide range of built-in tools organized by category:

| Category             | Tools                                                      | Use Cases                                          |
| -------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- |
| **Search**           | DuckDuckGo, Tavily, Exa, SerpAPI, Wikipedia, PubMed, ArXiv | Web research, fact checking, academic research     |
| **Web Scraping**     | Firecrawl, Crawl4AI, JinaReader, Spider, Newspaper         | Extracting content from websites                   |
| **Data & Analytics** | Dash, DuckDB, CSV, SQL, PostgreSQL, BigQuery, Pandas       | Self-learning database queries, analyzing data     |
| **Finance**          | YFinance, OpenBB                                           | Stock prices, financial data, market analysis      |
| **AI Generation**    | DALL-E 3, ElevenLabs TTS, Replicate, FAL                   | Image generation, text-to-speech, AI models        |
| **Productivity**     | GitHub, Linear, Todoist, Confluence, ClickUp, Cal.com      | Project management, task tracking, scheduling      |
| **Communication**    | WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, Telegram, MS Teams, Zoom, SMS    | Messaging, notifications, meeting management       |
| **CRM**              | HubSpot, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Apollo, ActiveCampaign      | Contact management, lead tracking, outreach        |
| **Cloud**            | AWS Lambda, AWS SES, Apify, E2B                            | Serverless functions, email delivery, web scraping |
| **Google Suite**     | Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Sheets                      | Email, scheduling, spreadsheets                    |
| **Other**            | Google Maps, OpenWeather, Calculator, File operations      | Location, weather, math, file handling             |

## What's Next

* **[Built-in Tools](/docs/tools/built-in-tools)** — Browse all available tools and what they do.
* **[Custom Tools](/docs/tools/custom-tools)** — Create your own tools with custom API endpoints.
* **[Google Calendar](/docs/tools/google-calendar)** — Set up appointment booking.
* **[Gmail](/docs/tools/gmail)** — Automate email workflows.
* **[WhatsApp](/docs/tools/whatsapp)** — Send messages, interactive buttons, and media via WhatsApp Business.
* **[SMS](/docs/tools/sms)** — Send text messages from your agents.
* **[CRM & Webhooks](/docs/tools/crm-webhooks)** — Connect to CRMs and external systems.