Full written series: https://www.servicenow.com/community/sn-employeeworks-blog/build-employeeworks-plugins-with-toolsmith/ba-p/3613461 We can give EmployeeWorks assistants access to tools like Enterprise Search, MCP servers and plugins. In this video, we explain when to use each one. First, the groundwork. A language model works with text: give it a travel policy or a booking confirmation and it can summarise it, compare the options or explain what to do next. On its own, though, it can't look up a live booking or cancel one. That's what tools are for. The model asks for a tool by name, the agent harness runs it and hands the result back, and that agentic loop is what makes an agent. Then the three options: • Enterprise Search, for company knowledge such as the travel cancellation policy. • MCP servers, an open standard for offering tools to agents like Claude, Codex and the AI assistants in EmployeeWorks. We ask for the team's open Linear issues, then inspect the Linear server's tools in Tool Studio. The model can call any tool a server exposes, including ones that update or delete things, so review them before you give an agent access. • Plugins, for tasks that have to run the same way every time. The travel plugin finds the employee's bookings, lets them pick one and confirms before anything changes. Plugins can also check rules in code, such as only allowing cancellations more than 48 hours before the trip. If that rule only lives in the model's instructions, an employee might be able to bypass it. But the plugin provides us with more deterministic checks. Next, we'll open up a plugin and look at what it's made of. 📖 Read the full written guide: https://www.servicenow.com/community/sn-employeeworks-blog/build-employeeworks-plugins-with-toolsmith/ba-p/3613461 🔑 Request ToolSmith early access: https://marketplace.moveworks.com/toolsmith/ 📚 ToolSmith overview: https://docs.moveworks.com/agent-studio/toolsmith/overview 🔌 MCP Workspace overview: https://docs.moveworks.com/agent-studio/mcp-workspace/overview ⚠️ MCP Workspace limitations: https://docs.moveworks.com/agent-studio/mcp-workspace/limitations-and-troubleshooting 🔎 Enterprise Search: https://docs.moveworks.com/ai-assistant/enterprise-search/indexed-search 🧩 Model Context Protocol: https://modelcontextprotocol.io Chapters: 0:00 Tools for EmployeeWorks assistants 0:14 What a language model can do on its own 0:27 Tools, the agent harness and the agentic loop 1:06 Enterprise Search for company knowledge 1:18 MCP servers: an open standard for tools 1:49 Plugins: the same steps, every time #ServiceNow #EmployeeWorks #ToolSmith #MCP #AIAgents