Tools
Reusable agent capabilities.Tools are the actions the agent can take in the world. Each tool is small, named, and reusable across every deployment that needs it.
One capability, one interface, one place.
A tool is a single, named capability that the agent can invoke — call this API, read this database, send this message, generate this document. Each tool has a defined interface: arguments in, structured result out.
The agent does not implement capabilities. It calls tools. The tool implementation can change — the underlying API can be replaced, the integration can be rewritten — and the agent does not notice. This is the abstraction that lets the system survive vendor changes, model upgrades, and architectural evolution.
Anatomy of a tool.
A tool is a function. Functions compose. So do tools.
From request to result.
The agent decides it needs to perform an action. It selects the appropriate tool from the registered set, assembles the arguments, and invokes the tool. The tool executes — calling whatever underlying system or API is required — and returns a structured result. The agent processes the result and continues.
The tool execution is logged. The arguments, the call, the result, the timing — all of it lands in the audit trail. When the customer asks why the agent did something, the answer includes the exact tool calls made.
What's in the toolbox.
- System integration tools. Read and write to CRMs, ERPs, accounting systems, scheduling systems, custom internal applications.
- Communication tools. Send email, send SMS, send WhatsApp, place voice calls.
- Document tools. Generate documents from templates, parse incoming documents, extract structured data.
- Web tools. Fetch URLs, navigate web portals, submit forms (used where APIs are not available).
- File tools. Read and write to local file systems, document repositories, shared drives.
- Computation tools. Date calculations, currency conversions, structured comparisons, validations.
Tools are not a closed set. New ones are added when a deployment requires them.
The CLI as the universal interface.
Every tool in CORTX is wrapped in a command-line interface. Not because the operator uses a CLI — they don't — but because the CLI is the most stable, most inspectable, most universally portable interface a software system can expose.
When a vendor changes, the CLI's implementation changes. The CLI's signature does not. The agent doesn't know anything happened. The workflows don't know anything happened. The operators don't know anything happened.
The cost of a vendor change drops from a project to a patch.
Where Tools show up.
Each ARM product depends on tools, but most density:
Operators interact with the agent, which invokes tools dozens of times per case.
Read Vendors Contracts & payables.Supplier APIs, three-way matching, payment processing — all tools.
Read ERP Back-office financials.Bidirectional sync to the underlying financial system runs through tools.
Read