Tools
The Tools page is the catalog of services CatalEx can connect to — Slack, GitHub, Jira, Gmail, Notion, HubSpot, Salesforce, Stripe, and roughly a hundred more. Once a service is connected, your Studio agents can act on it: read and send email, create issues, post messages, query a database, and so on.
Each connectable service is an integration, and every integration exposes a set of individual actions (for example, the Gmail integration includes Send Email, Create Draft, and List Labels). You decide, per action, whether an agent can run it automatically or must pause for your approval.
Built-in tools
A few tools are always available with no setup, marked ✓ Available:
- Web Search — search the web and open URLs to extract their content.
- Brain — search your company brain and personal documents (the same knowledge behind the Brain feature).
Browsing the catalog
Everything else is grouped into collapsible categories — Communication, CRM & Sales, Developer Tools, Project Management, Documents & Storage, Finance & Payments, Databases, and more. Each category header shows a count you can expand or collapse. Use the Search tools… box or the category filter to find what you need.
Cards carry a badge that tells you their state:
| Badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ✓ Available | A built-in tool that needs no setup. |
| + (Connect) | Ready to connect. |
| ✓ Connected | Already connected. (N) indicates multiple accounts. |
| Coming Soon | Not yet available (dimmed and non-interactive). |
Slack is currently marked Coming Soon on the Tools page. You can already connect Slack as a knowledge source today — that's done in Brain, not here.
Connecting integrations requires the Admin or Owner role. Members can use whatever's connected, but see unconnected integrations dimmed with a note to "Contact your workspace admin to add this integration."
Connecting an integration
Click the + on a card. Depending on the service, one of three things happens:
- One-click OAuth (most services). You approve access on the vendor's screen and you're done.
- Hosted credentials. For some services CatalEx opens a secure vendor-hosted page where you paste an API key or token; CatalEx only stores the resulting connection.
- Custom credentials. A few services ask an admin to fill in fields such as a Client ID and Client Secret (CatalEx shows the redirect URL to register), then continue to OAuth.
After a successful connection, name it (e.g. "Work Slack") so you can tell multiple accounts apart.
Multiple accounts
You can connect more than one account per integration. Click the ✓ Connected badge to open the connections manager, where you can rename a connection, add another account, or disconnect one. Disconnecting is reversible — reconnect any time. (Disconnecting also removes that account from every agent that was using it.)
How agents use tools
Connecting an integration here makes it available; each agent then chooses which tools it actually uses. In an agent's Tools tab, you add tools from the catalog and pick which connected accounts that agent may act through.
Guardrails and approvals
Every tool action has a guardrail that decides whether an agent can run it automatically or must pause for your approval. Open an integration's detail panel to see its Guardrails list — each action has a two-way toggle:
- Auto — the agent performs the action automatically.
- Manual — the action requires your approval before it runs.
Changes save instantly. When an action is set to Manual, the agent pauses and asks you to Approve or Reject it — you'll see this in the agent's chat. From an approval prompt you can also choose to approve that tool for the session, once, or always, so you aren't asked again.
Start new integrations on Manual for anything that writes or sends data (emails, messages, tickets). Once you trust an agent's behaviour, switch the safe actions to Auto.
Custom tools and MCP servers
Beyond the official catalog, you can extend what agents can do:
- Script tools — small Python tools you build directly in an agent's Tools tab for bespoke logic.
- Custom MCP servers — admins can register a remote MCP server to bring an internal or third-party tool into CatalEx. Use + Add custom MCP on the Tools page.
FAQ
What's the difference between an integration and an action? An integration is the service (e.g. Gmail). An action is one thing the agent can do within it (e.g. Send Email). Guardrails are set per action.
Why did my agent stop and ask for approval? That action's guardrail is set to Manual. Approve it once, or switch the action to Auto to skip future prompts.
Can different agents use different accounts of the same tool? Yes. When you add a tool to an agent, you choose which connected accounts that agent may use.
Do members need to reconnect tools themselves? No. An admin connects an integration once, and team members' agents reuse it.
Is connecting Slack here the same as connecting it to Brain? No. The Tools page connects a service so agents can act on it; Brain connects Slack, Confluence, and Google Docs as knowledge to search. They're separate connections. (Slack-as-a-tool is Coming Soon.)