Tools
What Decopilot can do, and the two kinds of tools it has access to
Two kinds of tools
Decopilot has access to two kinds of tools:
Built-in tools — always available, used for managing work, delegating tasks, and reading context. The same regardless of scope.
Scope tools — come from the connections attached in your current scope. At org scope, that's your org-wide built-ins. At agent scope, it's the tools attached to the open agent.
Built-in tools
These are the tools the Decopilot agent uses internally to manage its own work — not a public HTTP API you call from outside. For the external, "bring-your-own-client" surface (MCP endpoints, the Decopilot thread REST API), see the API Reference.
| Tool | Available in subtasks | What it does |
|---|---|---|
subtask | No | Start a subtask with a cloned agent, another agent, or an ephemeral agent scoped to a concrete MCP connection |
user_ask | No | Ask you a question when it needs input |
enable_tool | Yes | Activate a scope tool so it can be called next step |
read_resource | Yes | Read documentation or guidelines from the current scope |
read_prompt | Yes | Read a reusable prompt template |
read_tool_output | Yes | Re-read a large tool result that was offloaded to storage |
web_search | Yes | Run a deep web research pass and stream the result (requires a web-research model) |
generate_image | Yes | Generate an image with the configured image model |
propose_plan | No | Propose a plan for approval (only registered in plan mode) |
Subtasks have restricted access — they can't start additional subtasks or ask you questions, since they're meant to run and report back without interruption.
Sandbox-backed agents get VM tools
When an agent has a sandbox (a linked GitHub repo, see Agents), Decopilot is also given six VM tools that operate inside that sandbox:
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
bash | Runs a shell command in the sandbox |
read | Reads a file from the sandbox |
write | Writes a file in the sandbox |
edit | Applies a targeted edit to an existing file |
grep | Searches file contents with ripgrep |
glob | Lists files matching a path pattern |
These tools are provisioned lazily — the sandbox only starts on the first VM-tool call.
Scope tools
Scope tools are the domain-specific capabilities tied to your current context. Open an agent and you'll get the tools attached to that agent — Shopify tools if the agent has the Shopify connection, shipping tools if it has ShipStation, and so on.
Example: An order-fulfillment agent might expose:
GET_ORDERS— fetch customer ordersUPDATE_INVENTORY— update stock levelsCREATE_SHIPPING_LABEL— generate shipping labelsGET_PRODUCTS— list the product catalog
Which tools are available depends on the connections attached to the current agent. See Agents for how to curate this.
How Decopilot uses tools
Decopilot starts each task with only its built-in tools. It sees scope tools listed in its instructions and uses them as needed to complete your request.
For complex work, it can delegate to a subtask (using subtask) or load additional context first (using read_resource or read_prompt) before acting.
Next: See Context and tasks to understand how Decopilot manages memory.