Tools and Plugins

Everything the agent does beyond generating text happens through tools. Tools are how the agent reads files, runs commands, browses the web, sends messages, and interacts with devices.

Tools, skills, and plugins

RemoteClaw has three layers that work together:

A tool is a typed function the agent can invoke (e.g. `exec`, `browser`, `web_search`, `message`). RemoteClaw ships a set of **built-in tools** and plugins can register additional ones.

The agent sees tools as structured function definitions sent to the model API.

A skill is a markdown file (`SKILL.md`) injected into the system prompt. Skills give the agent context, constraints, and step-by-step guidance for using tools effectively. Skills live in your workspace, in shared folders, or ship inside plugins.

[Skills reference](/tools/skills) | [Creating skills](/tools/creating-skills)

A plugin is a package that can register any combination of capabilities: channels, model providers, tools, skills, speech, image generation, and more. Some plugins are **core** (shipped with RemoteClaw), others are **external** (published on npm by the community).

[Install and configure plugins](/tools/plugin) | [Build your own](/plugins/building-plugins)

Built-in tools

These tools ship with RemoteClaw and are available without installing any plugins:

Tool	What it does	Page
`exec` / `process`	Run shell commands, manage background processes	Exec
`browser`	Control a Chromium browser (navigate, click, screenshot)	Browser
`web_search` / `web_fetch`	Search the web, fetch page content	Web
`read` / `write` / `edit`	File I/O in the workspace
`apply_patch`	Multi-hunk file patches	Apply Patch
`message`	Send messages across all channels	Agent Send
`canvas`	Drive node Canvas (present, eval, snapshot)
`nodes`	Discover and target paired devices
`cron` / `gateway`	Manage scheduled jobs, restart gateway
`image` / `image_generate`	Analyze or generate images
`sessions_*` / `agents_list`	Session management, sub-agents	Sub-agents

For image work, use image for analysis and image_generate for generation or editing. If you target openai/*, google/*, fal/*, or another non-default image provider, configure that provider’s auth/API key first.

Plugin-provided tools

Plugins can register additional tools. Some examples:

Lobster — typed workflow runtime with resumable approvals
LLM Task — JSON-only LLM step for structured output
Diffs — diff viewer and renderer
OpenProse — markdown-first workflow orchestration

Tool configuration

Allow and deny lists

Control which tools the agent can call via tools.allow / tools.deny in config. Deny always wins over allow.

{
  tools: {
    allow: ["group:fs", "browser", "web_search"],
    deny: ["exec"],
  },
}

Tool profiles

tools.profile sets a base allowlist before allow/deny is applied. Per-agent override: agents.list[].tools.profile.

Profile	What it includes
`full`	All tools (default)
`coding`	File I/O, runtime, sessions, memory, image
`messaging`	Messaging, session list/history/send/status
`minimal`	`session_status` only

Tool groups

Use group:* shorthands in allow/deny lists:

Group	Tools
`group:runtime`	exec, bash, process
`group:fs`	read, write, edit, apply_patch
`group:sessions`	sessions_list, sessions_history, sessions_send, sessions_spawn, session_status
`group:memory`	memory_search, memory_get
`group:web`	web_search, web_fetch
`group:ui`	browser, canvas
`group:automation`	cron, gateway
`group:messaging`	message
`group:nodes`	nodes
`group:remoteclaw`	All built-in RemoteClaw tools (excludes plugin tools)

Provider-specific restrictions

Use tools.byProvider to restrict tools for specific providers without changing global defaults:

{
  tools: {
    profile: "coding",
    byProvider: {
      "google-antigravity": { profile: "minimal" },
    },
  },
}