Tools

A tool is a program your AI can work in: Blender, a browser, a 3D printer, your smart home. Under the hood each is an MCP server - the open protocol for giving an AI actions - and the app knows how to start it, what it needs, and what to ask you for.

Getting one

Add-ons › Tools shows Ready to add: the tools listed in the directory, reviewed, with what each needs checked against your computer. Green means you have it; amber shows Install, which first shows exactly what would run and runs it on the second click - uv through its official installer, Git, Node.js, Python and Docker through your system's own package manager, or your terminal when a password is needed. Install what it needs does all of them in one go, then carries on to the add.

Some tools bring their source with them: Fetch and add says what it fetches and from where (a git repository into your home folder) before it does. Check for updates on such a tool is a single check you press; nothing is checked on its own.

Add your own takes any MCP server: a program with arguments, or an address on this computer or your own network.

Blender

Blender's own Lab server needs Blender 5.1 or newer and its MCP add-on. Once the tool is added, the card offers to install the add-on through Blender's own extension installer - it also turns on Blender's Allow Online Access setting, which the add-on requires before it will open its connection. That connection is local, on this computer only; the setting is Blender's, and it also lets Blender check its own extensions site for updates. The card says this before it runs. Restart Blender afterwards if it was open.

Settings a tool asks for

Some tools need an address or a key - Home Assistant needs where it is and a token you create; a printer server needs the printer's address. A listing describes those settings; it never carries values. When you add such a tool the app asks for them in a small form, and every tool with settings has a Settings button.

Values stay on this computer. Secret ones are stored encrypted with the same key that protects your conversations, are never shown back, and go only to that tool. A tool missing a required setting says so and is not started.

Giving it to an AI

Tools are chosen per AI - "Used by" on the card, or the Tools section when you edit the AI. An AI carries only the tools you gave it.

How an AI uses it

• In a project, the tools are attached to the session; the AI uses them like any other action - each step shows in the working rail with its real result, and every action goes through your approve step, the same as a file edit. Your records keep all of it.
• In chat, an AI that carries tools runs its turns through the same machinery behind the scenes, with the same steps and approvals in the thread. Nothing needs a folder, and the workspace behind a tools chat is not a project: it never shows as an open folder elsewhere, and its replies are not offered to a folder's notes.

Each listing carries guidance for the AI - how to use that tool well (Blender: change the open scene through the live connection, work in small steps, never save unless asked). It rides into every session the tool is part of.

The chip beside the model chip

In chat, a small chip beside the model chip shows what the AI carries - an icon and a count each for tools and skills, nothing when it carries nothing. It opens one panel:

• Every tool and skill installed on this computer, each with an on/off switch. The ones this AI carries are on; switching another on gives it to the AI right there. Off keeps a tool on the AI - it just sits out. All tools off and the AI answers directly.
• Approvals for tools - Ask every time, Auto, or Approve everything, the same three levels as projects. The choice is remembered per AI and applied to the open session at once.
• The Projects install when the helper is missing: tools run on the Projects helper, a free ~50 MB download that shows its progress on the panel.

Changes apply from your next message. Settings › Appearance can hide the chip; tools and skills stay on the AI and can be changed from its form.

What a tools turn looks like

A tools turn in chat speaks like chat: the AI says in one plain sentence what it is about to do, then answers in a few spoken sentences. The steps fold under the reply and are recorded as before. The reply's model line says how many tools the AI carried and that their definitions rode along with every turn.

A session that carries tools asks for reading room before it starts. The tool descriptions alone take about 10k tokens, so a local model running with a 16k window is reloaded at a bigger one when your computer can afford it, and told plainly when it cannot. A picture a tool returns (a Blender viewport shot, say) does not move the session onto a vision model; the AI checks its work through the tool's text outputs instead.

What tools need from your model

Tool use needs a model that is good at calling tools. Online models are; offline, that means the agentic tier - Ornith, Qwen 3.6, GLM, Nemotron 3.5, the coders - on hardware that runs them well. On a small offline model the app says so rather than letting the AI guess.

When a tool does not start

If a tool's server fails to start, the turn says so - "blender didn't start, so its tools are not available this session" - with the reason from its log. The AI is never left to improvise around a missing tool.

Sharing a tool of your own: Sharing add-ons.