Builtin and MCP tools

When invoked with -t (or a profile that enables tools), clai exposes builtin tools and any configured MCP server tools to the model.

Builtin tools

Tool	Description
bash	Execute a shell command and return stdout / stderr.
rg	Search file contents using ripgrep patterns.
file_tree	Render a directory tree of the workspace.
find	Locate files by name or pattern.
write_file	Create or update a file on disk.
web_search	Perform a web search query.
website_text	Fetch and extract readable text from a URL.
recall	Retrieve slices of truncated tool outputs stored earlier in the session.
clai_Check / clai_Wait / clai_Kill	Inspect, wait on, or terminate backgrounded sub-processes started by tools.

MCP server tools

Each JSON file in ~/.config/clai/mcpServers/<server>.json defines an MCP server launched over stdio. Tools discovered from <server> are exposed as mcp_<server>_<tool> and can be matched with globs such as -t="mcp_github_*".

See MCP servers and builtin tools for examples.