agent-joule/docs/.doc-examples/reference.md

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title: AI Agent Tools - Joule description: Built-in tools for Joule's AI agent including file editing, code search, terminal commands, web search, and diagnostics.

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Tools

Joule's built-in agent has access to these tools for reading, searching, and editing your codebase. These tools are used in the Agent Panel during conversations with AI agents.

You can configure permissions for tool actions, including situations where they are automatically approved, automatically denied, or require your confirmation on a case-by-case basis. See Tool Permissions for the list of permission-gated tools and details.

To add custom tools beyond these built-in ones, see MCP servers.

Read & Search Tools

diagnostics

Gets errors and warnings for either a specific file or the entire project, useful after making edits to determine if further changes are needed. When a path is provided, shows all diagnostics for that specific file. When no path is provided, shows a summary of error and warning counts for all files in the project.

fetch

Fetches a URL and returns the content as Markdown. Useful for providing docs as context.

find_path

Quickly finds files by matching glob patterns (like **/*.js), returning matching file paths alphabetically.

grep

Searches file contents across the project using regular expressions, preferred for finding symbols in code without knowing exact file paths.

list_directory

Lists files and directories in a given path, providing an overview of filesystem contents.

read_file

Reads the content of a specified file in the project, allowing access to file contents.

search_web

Searches the web for information, providing results with snippets and links from relevant web pages, useful for accessing real-time information.

Edit Tools

copy_path

Copies a file or directory recursively in the project, more efficient than manually reading and writing files when duplicating content.

create_directory

Creates a new directory at the specified path within the project, creating all necessary parent directories (similar to mkdir -p).

delete_path

Deletes a file or directory (including contents recursively) at the specified path and confirms the deletion.

edit_file

Edits files by replacing specific text with new content.

move_path

Moves or renames a file or directory in the project, performing a rename if only the filename differs.

write_file

Creates a new file or overwrites an existing file with completely new contents.

terminal

Executes shell commands and returns the combined output, creating a new shell process for each invocation.

Other Tools

spawn_agent

Spawns a subagent with its own context window to perform a delegated task. Useful for running parallel investigations, completing self-contained tasks, or performing research where only the outcome matters. Each subagent has access to the same tools as the parent agent.

See Also

• Agent Panel — Where you interact with AI agents
• Tool Permissions — Configure which tools require approval
• MCP Servers — Add custom tools via Model Context Protocol