Built-in tools
Built-in capabilities work out of the box, with no credentials and no registration. They live on three surfaces, and knowing which is which saves a lot of hunting.
Prerequisites
- An Ask account on an instance where built-ins are enabled by your admin.
The three surfaces
- Agent creator chips: step 2 (Tools & Knowledge) has toggle chips for Web Search Tools, Database Navigator, and Data Analysis. These are per-agent choices.
- Personal settings → Tool capabilities: your own defaults, on for every agent you use unless you toggle them off ("Per-agent capabilities are configured inside each agent"). This is where code execution, file generation, and visualization live.
- The composer's Tools submenu: chatting with the default ask agent, the + menu's Tools entry lets you hand-pick capabilities for that conversation.
The capabilities
Code Execution & File Generation
"Runs Python and terminal commands in a secure sandbox. Your agents can also generate files for you to download, like spreadsheets, documents, images, and PDFs." One capability covers both computing and producing takeaway files. (A separate DOCX Documents entry in the composer handles Word-document work, and Code Generator "helps your agents write code in any language", meaning writing code as opposed to running it.)
Web Search Tools
Lets an agent search the open web and read sources, citing what it used. See Citations & sources. Available as a creator chip. No region or locale settings are exposed.
Data Visualization & Data Analysis
Data Visualization, "Lets your agents create charts, graphs, dashboards, and interactive maps", is a personal capability; Data Analysis is its creator-chip sibling for working through structured data. They pair naturally with Code Execution and uploaded CSVs.
Database Navigator
The creator chip for querying connected databases with SQL. See Connectors for setting up database connections.
Your instance may carry further built-ins (translation, maps, video tools, and more), so browse Tools (/connectors) and the composer's Tools submenu to see what your deployment includes.
When to use each
| Capability | Use when… | Skip when… |
|---|---|---|
| Code Execution & File Generation | The agent needs to compute, transform data, or produce downloadable files. | Answers are pure Q&A, so it adds latency for no gain. |
| Web Search Tools | Answers benefit from current information not in your knowledge bases. | Internal-only data, where you risk leaking the question to a search engine. |
| Data Visualization / Data Analysis | Users will ask for charts, trends, or number-crunching. | The agent only writes text or summaries. |
| Database Navigator | The agent should answer from a live database. | No database connection exists on your org. |
Tips & gotchas
Code execution + data visualization is a powerful pair for analyst-style agents. Attach both and let the agent compute the dataset before plotting it.
Web search sends parts of the user's query to an external search provider. For sensitive deployments, whether sovereign, on-prem, or regulated, confirm with your admin that web search is permitted before attaching it.