Turning tools on and off

What you will learn Why per-workspace tool settings exist, and how to decide what to enable and what to disable.

Why turn them on and off

Because of the two problems from when you have too many tools.

Problem	Result
Tool definitions occupy context	higher cost, less room to work
Several similar tools	it picks the wrong one

The second hurts more in practice. Turning off unused tools is both a saving and an accuracy improvement.

Where to do it

Under Settings → Channel settings → MCP you choose which tools this workspace enables. You can also see the state through the filters on the agent list screen.

The list of tools you can enable. Disabled tools are never passed to the model.

How to decide what to enable

Criterion 1 — does this workspace actually use it?

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Sales workspace:  ✓ CRM lookup, quoting system, email  ✗ GitHub, deployment tools, code search

"We might need it someday" goes in the off column. Turn it on when you actually need it.

Criterion 2 — is it irreversible?

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Read tools         → enable (safe)Write tools        → only the ones you needDelete · payment   → reconsider whether you really need them

From the tools are permissions perspective, enabled means usable.

Criterion 3 — are there several similar ones?

Five search tools and the model gets confused. Enable only the one that fits best.

Built-in tools

Beyond what you attach via MCP, Connect provides some tools by default.

Tool	What
Web	search, fetch a URL, YouTube content
Drive	read and write workspace files
Webview	open and display a screen
System work folder	hand work to a folder on a registered machine
Thread notes	jot down what it learned; re-attached automatically on later turns
Delegation	hand work to another agent

Enable and disable these by the same criteria.

How many is reasonable

Enabled tools	State
~10	no problem
10–30	fine if names and descriptions are good
30+	tidying is advised

Connect has a mechanism that narrows to tools close to the request, but it only engages above 100 tools. Below that, everything enabled is passed through, so turning things off is your only control.

Large results get set aside

When a tool returns something large, it is not handed to the model whole. Otherwise one result eats the whole conversation. There are two stages.

1. Setting it aside — the default


Threshold	results over 10,000 characters
Method	only the first 2,000 characters stay in the conversation; the full text is kept
Re-reading	the model asks for a range and reads the original again

It is not cut and thrown away. If the model needs the tail, it fetches it on the spot. The result also stays on screen in full, so you can read all of it.

Storage has a ceiling too (256KB). Past that the tail really is gone, and the model is told the text stops there.

2. Truncation — for the truly huge

Before the stage above, a tool result that is enormous to begin with really is cut.


Threshold	about 30% of the model's context (400,000 characters at most)
Method	mostly the head; if the tail holds errors or totals, head + tail
Indication	a warning is inserted at the cut

If you feel you only saw part of a result, this is why. The fix is on the tool side.

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✗ "fetch the whole log"          → truncated✓ "fetch only the errors"        → small to begin with✓ "fetch it 1000 lines at a time" → if the tool accepts ranges

If you build a tool yourself, always include range and count arguments. Without them it becomes a tool you cannot use on large data.

Telling the team

Turning tools on and off affects the whole team.

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□ Turning one off: people using it suddenly cannot → tell them in advance□ Turning one on: nobody knows means nobody uses it → announce it with an example

Tidy periodically

Check about once a quarter:

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□ which tools have gone unused for three months?□ are there tools left from a finished project?□ are there connections whose credentials expired?

The third is common. The token expired and it is failing, and nobody knows.

Check yourself

1. Why is turning off unused tools an accuracy improvement?

Answer

Because fewer candidates lower the chance of picking wrong. Several similar tools confuse the model. It is both a cost saving and a selection-accuracy improvement.

2. What do you do with a tool you "might need someday"?

Answer

Turn it off. Turn it on when you need it. Enabled means usable, and it only adds to the candidate set.

3. What is most commonly found in the quarterly check?

Answer

Connections whose credentials expired. The token expired and it is failing, and nobody knows.

Now connect your machine → Connecting a system