cotera

How tools work

Tools are how Cotera acts on the world: searching, scraping, reading and writing CRMs, spreadsheets, Slack, and a hundred other systems. Agents use tools you give them; Coco can use any connected tool directly in chat.

Three kinds of setup

  • No setup — tools like Google Search and Site Scraper work immediately. Start here.
  • Sign in once — tools like Slack and HubSpot ask you to sign in to the underlying service the first time. Others are even lighter: Google Sheets just needs Cotera's email address given access to your spreadsheet. Either way, Cotera stores the connection for your whole org.
  • API key — some tools ask for an API key from the provider. The tool's page in the catalog shows exactly where to get it.

Connecting a tool

Open Tools from the sidebar (or just ask Coco to use a tool — it will prompt you to connect if needed). Connections are org-wide: once anyone connects a tool, every agent and teammate can use it.

Giving tools to an agent

An agent can only use the tools it's been given — that's a feature, not a limitation. Scope each agent to the few tools its job needs; it makes the agent faster, cheaper, and far more predictable.

When a tool call fails

Failures show up in the transcript on the tool call itself. The common causes, in order:

  1. The connection expired or was revoked — reconnect the tool from Tools.
  2. Rate limits — heavy loops can exceed a provider's limits; the call usually succeeds on retry.
  3. The thing doesn't exist — a deleted Slack channel, a suspended Twitter/X account, a bad URL. Fix the input, not the connection.

If an agent keeps failing on the same call in a loop, stop it and check the input it's using — agents will faithfully retry a wrong channel name forever. More in Troubleshooting.