How toolboxes work
Give an agent a curated set of tools instead of everything a product can do. A toolbox is that curated set — often mixing several products in one place.
Smaller, well-described toolboxes produce better results. An agent choosing between six clearly named tools makes better decisions than one sorting through two hundred.
Where to find it: Toolboxes in the sidebar → Shared toolboxes, My toolboxes, or Synthetic tools
Three kinds
| Kind | Where in the UI | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Shared (template) toolbox | Shared toolboxes | A reusable definition you build and share. Teammates take their own copy. |
| Your (user) toolbox | My toolboxes | What MCP clients connect to — copies of templates, plus automatic system toolboxes. |
| Synthetic tools | Synthetic tools | Multi-step composite tools you add into toolboxes like normal entries. |
Under My toolboxes you’ll also see automatic system toolboxes Elaichi maintains:
| System toolbox | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Global toolbox (“All tools”) | Everything you can currently reach |
| Connection toolbox (“{connection} tools”) | All tools for one Active connection |
System toolboxes are read-only: you can use them and create MCP servers from them, but you can’t edit their entries.
The important rule
AI clients connect to your toolboxes under My toolboxes, not to a shared template itself. A shared toolbox is the recipe; your copy (or a connection toolbox) is what gets an MCP endpoint.
flowchart TD Shared["Shared toolbox<br/>template / recipe"] -->|"Use share"| Mine["My toolbox<br/>your copy"] Conn["Connection toolbox<br/>auto from a connection"] --> Mine Mine --> MCP["MCP server"] MCP --> Client["AI client"]
Sharing levels (ACL)
When you share a template toolbox:
| Level | What recipients can do |
|---|---|
| View | See the toolbox and its tools |
| Use | Create a personal toolbox from it and run its tools (default) |
| Edit | Change tools and settings |
Share with a member, a team, or the entire organization. View-only recipients can’t instantiate.
Sharing never shares credentials. Each person runs tools through connections they can use — their own, or ones the template pins / delegates according to how it was built.
Per-tool customization
On a shared toolbox (and on tools you add to your own copy), open Edit tool to tune what agents see and how calls run:
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
| Name override / Description override | What the model sees (empty = catalog) |
| Enabled | Disabled entries stay in the toolbox UI but aren’t offered over MCP |
| Frozen parameters | Fixed values stripped from the advertised schema and force-merged at execution — the model can’t see or override them |
| Default values | Applied when the client omits a parameter; the model can still override |
| Input schema override | Replace the advertised JSON Schema (with helpers to copy or reset the catalog schema) |
Call-time precedence: defaults < client arguments < frozen parameters.
On shared templates you can also leave a tool with No connection (user provides) so each person binds their own account when they instantiate.
Partial usability
If a template tool needs a connection you don’t have yet:
- The console shows Needs connection (and related statuses like Tool unavailable, Disabled, Ready)
- Unmet, disabled, missing, or restriction-blocked tools stay visible for setup but are hidden from MCP until they can run
Connect the missing product (or bind an existing connection), and those tools appear to clients automatically.
How the pieces fit
- Connect accounts → automatic connection toolboxes appear under Mine.
- Optionally build a shared toolbox, tune entries, and share with view / use / edit.
- Recipients with use create their copy under Mine and bind connections.
- Create an MCP server from a Mine toolbox.
- Optionally add synthetic tools into shared or personal toolboxes.
Good to know
- Tools blocked by restrictions never appear to MCP clients, even if a template includes them.
- Renaming a tool changes it only inside that toolbox — the underlying product is untouched.
- Permissions:
toolbox:createto build,toolbox:shareto share,toolbox:manageto edit or delete other people’s toolboxes.