API tools

Not sure where to begin? Explore our Getting started guidelines to set up your first AI Agent, review Key concepts to understand the essentials, or check out Improvement tactics to resolve issues and keep things running smoothly.

After you’ve added Knowledge to your AI Agent, you can start setting up automations like API tools (formerly Actions) to make it more powerful.

API tools help your AI Agent retrieve, process, and send data, forming a core part of how it operates. They work alongside Playbooks and Processes, which ensure tasks happen in the right order. By adding API tools to a structured workflow, your AI Agent can follow clear steps to complete tasks automatically.

This section covers how to set up and manage API calls using API tools. You’ll also learn how to authenticate API calls with tokens. For real-world examples of how to apply API tools effectively, see Best practices.

Which tool to use

Three tool types connect an AI Agent to data and systems. Choose based on where the tool is defined and what the Agent needs to do with the result.

Situation	Tool
Fetch or send data through an endpoint you configure in the dashboard	API tool
Reshape, trim, compute, or format a response before the Agent uses it	Code tool
Connect a system you already run as an MCP server	MCP tool