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Version: 2.0

Tool

Tools represent external or internal capabilities that agents can invoke dynamically. They are defined by:

  • A unique ID (tol_abcd)and name.
  • A description of their function
  • An input schema describing accepted parameters (in JSON Schema format)
  • Metadata for categorization
  • Runtime availability (enabled/disabled)

Available tools​

The tech preview of Vectara Agents provides the following tools:

  • corpora_search: Retrieves results from a Vectara corpus or corpora using Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). This tool provides summary and relevant search results using the same default parameters as the Multiple Corpora Query.
  • web_search: Retrieves results from the public web.

Tool configurations​

Tool configurations are reusable settings for tools. They enable you to define argument bindings and other settings for a tool once, and then reuse that configuration across multiple agents. This simplifies agent creation and management.

There are two types of tool configurations:

  • ReferenceToolConfiguration: A tool configuration specified by reference to an existing tool configuration.
  • InlineToolConfiguration: A tool configuration defined inline in the agent.

Tool permissions and security​

Tools follow the same permission model as the rest of Vectara:

  1. API keys: Tools can only access corpora if the API key has access to the corpora.
  2. Metadata filtering: Additional security through metadata filters
  3. Result limiting: Control how much data tools can retrieve