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Tools

Tools are the external capabilities Ploton connects to — databases, APIs, OAuth services, shell commands, and anything your agents need to act in the real world.

What are tools?

A tool is anything a subagent can call on behalf of your agent. Your database, your CRM, a payment processor, a shell command that runs ImageMagick, an internal API behind your VPN — all tools.

Tools are the building blocks that subagents use. When you deploy a subagent, it automatically gets access to every tool matching its domain. A CRM subagent gets CRM tools. A billing subagent gets payment tools. Ploton enforces these boundaries server-side.

Types of tools

OAuth services

Third-party platforms that require user authorization — CRMs, payment processors, communication platforms, cloud storage.

Ploton manages the OAuth lifecycle: consent flows, token storage, refresh, scope management. Your agent never touches a raw token.

APIs

Any HTTP endpoint your agent needs to hit — REST, GraphQL, internal microservices. Auth can be API keys, bearer tokens, or nothing.

Databases

PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB. Ploton can query, insert, update, and export data. You store connection credentials in Ploton’s config.

Shell commands

System-level tools like ImageMagick, FFmpeg, or custom scripts. Ploton runs these in a sandboxed environment as part of a task workflow.

Custom integrations

Anything that doesn’t fit the categories above. If it has an interface — HTTP, CLI, SDK — Ploton can wrap it as a tool.

How tools get used

Tools don’t run on their own. They get selected and invoked by a subagent as part of a task’s workflow.

flowchart LR
    A["Task + sub_agent"] --> B["Route to subagent"]
    B --> C["Select tools"]
    C --> D["Authenticate"]
    D --> E["Execute"]
    E --> F["Return result"]

    style A fill:#1a1630,stroke:#FACC15,color:#e8e0f0
    style B fill:#1a1630,stroke:#FACC15,color:#e8e0f0
    style C fill:#1a1630,stroke:#3B82F6,color:#e8e0f0
    style D fill:#1a1630,stroke:#FACC15,color:#e8e0f0
    style E fill:#1a1630,stroke:#FACC15,color:#e8e0f0
    style F fill:#1a1630,stroke:#50FA7B,color:#e8e0f0

Say your agent routes a task to crm-agent with the prompt:

Pull all contacts from user_123's CRM account created this month

The subagent will:

  1. Analyze the prompt
  2. Select the CRM tool from its available tools
  3. Build a workflow: authenticate, query contacts, filter by date, format response
  4. Execute each step, calling the CRM tool with the right parameters

A single task can use multiple tools. “Pull the user’s invoices from the payment service and upload a summary to their cloud storage” routes to a subagent that hits two tools in one workflow.

Built-in tools

When you deploy a subagent, it automatically gets access to the tools matching its domain. A CRM subagent gets CRM tools, a billing subagent gets payment tools, a media subagent gets design and processing tools.

Ploton ships with pre-configured connectors for 100+ services — the tools that cover the vast majority of real-world workflows out of the box.

Full suite access — For platforms like Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, Ploton connects to the entire ecosystem. Not just Gmail and Drive — Sheets, Calendar, Meet, Docs, Admin, and everything else in the suite.

CategoryTools
Google WorkspaceGmail, Drive, Sheets, Docs, Calendar, Meet, Forms, Slides, Chat, Admin, Keep, Cloud Storage
Microsoft 365Outlook, OneDrive, Excel, Word, Teams, SharePoint, Calendar, OneNote, Power Automate
CRM & SalesSalesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM, Close, Freshsales
CommunicationSlack, Discord, Twilio (SMS + Voice), SendGrid, Mailchimp, Intercom, Postmark
Project ManagementJira, Asana, Linear, Trello, Monday.com, ClickUp, Basecamp
Cloud StorageAWS S3, Google Cloud Storage, Dropbox, Box
DatabasesPostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Supabase, Firebase, DynamoDB, Snowflake, BigQuery
Payments & FinanceStripe, PayPal, QuickBooks, Xero, Plaid, Square
AnalyticsGoogle Analytics, Mixpanel, Amplitude, Segment, PostHog, Looker
Customer SupportZendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk, Help Scout, Front
Developer & DevOpsGitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Vercel, AWS (Lambda, EC2, SQS), GCP, Cloudflare Workers
Marketing & SocialHubSpot Marketing, Buffer, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, Meta (Facebook + Instagram)
E-commerceShopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento
Design & MediaFigma, Canva, Cloudinary, ImageMagick, FFmpeg, Puppeteer
HR & RecruitingGreenhouse, BambooHR, Gusto, Workday
Forms & SurveysTypeform, SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, Tally
Shell & SystemAny CLI tool, Python scripts, custom executables (sandboxed)

This list grows every week. For services not listed here, you can register your own — see the Registering Custom Tools guide.

Tools vs. trained tasks

Tools and Trained Tasks are related but different:

  • A tool is a capability — a CRM API, a payment API, a database
  • A trained task is a task that benefits from execution memory — what a subagent learned from running past tasks against that tool

Every tool starts as a connector. As tasks run through a subagent, execution memory accumulates — what worked, what failed, how to recover. That memory is scoped to each subagent’s domain and is what makes future tasks “trained.”

Tool:    "I can connect to this CRM"
Trained: "I can connect to this CRM, and I know that rate limits
          hit at 100 req/10sec, that the schema changed in the
          latest API version, and that token refresh takes ~200ms"

Next steps

Previous Subagents Next Tasks