Tools¶
Tools are the actions an agent can take during a run. Knosh provides twelve built-in tools covering filesystem navigation, file reading and writing, and web access.
Read-only tools¶
These tools never create, modify, or delete content. They are the only tools available to the kdocs command.
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
file-info |
Metadata for files and directories (size, timestamps, permissions) |
get-working-directory |
The current working directory |
glob |
Find files by name or pattern |
grep |
Search file contents with a regex |
list-directory-tree |
Directory tree as an indented listing |
text-read |
Read a text file or directory listing |
web-fetch |
Fetch a URL as Markdown, HTML, or plain text |
Write-capable tools¶
These tools create, modify, or delete content on the filesystem.
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
create-directory |
Create one or more directories |
delete-file |
Delete one or more files |
move-content |
Move or rename a file or directory |
text-edit |
Replace text in an existing file |
text-write |
Write or overwrite a file |
MCP tools¶
Tools from connected MCP servers are also offered to the agent, each namespaced as <serverHandle>_<toolName> so they never collide with a built-in. This namespacing is the same whether the server is local (spawned over stdio) or remote (connected over Streamable HTTP) — a tool's offered name never reveals which transport its server used. They are not listed here or by list-tools, which cover built-ins only — use list-mcp to see a server's configuration, and the <serverHandle>_<toolName> convention to work out the name an MCP tool is offered under.
Tool permissions¶
Each agent can restrict which tools it uses and which paths those tools may access. See the permission section of the agent configuration reference for details. This permission model applies to built-in tools only — see agents.md's mcp section for how MCP tools are gated.