Built-in Tools Overview
ChatShell ships with 9 built-in tools that your AI uses autonomously. These tools are always available in every conversation — no MCP servers to configure, no plugins to install.
Available Tools
Section titled “Available Tools”| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Web Search | Search the web and retrieve relevant results |
| Web Fetch | Fetch and read the full content of any web page |
| Bash | Execute shell commands on your local machine |
| Read | Read file contents from your local filesystem |
| Edit | Make precise text replacements in files |
| Write | Create or overwrite files with provided content |
| Grep | Search file contents using pattern matching |
| Glob | Discover files by name patterns |
| Kill Shell | Terminate the current bash session and start fresh |
How They Work
Section titled “How They Work”When you send a message, the AI model decides which tools (if any) to use based on your request. It can chain multiple tool calls in sequence — for example, searching the web, fetching specific pages, and then reading a local file to compare results.
You can watch each tool call as it happens: ChatShell shows the tool name, its input, and a summary of the output in real time.
Tool Calls in Practice
Section titled “Tool Calls in Practice”Here are three real examples of how ChatShell chains tools autonomously:
Travel planning with Web Search:
“Plan a 3-day trip to Barcelona including must-see sights and restaurant recommendations.”
ChatShell makes ~6 web searches and ~8 page fetches to gather current, specific information before producing a detailed itinerary — all autonomously.
Movie research with deep web fetching:
“Find and compare the best sci-fi movies of the last 5 years.”
18 tool calls in one query: 6 Web Searches + 12 Web Fetches to find, read, and synthesize detailed reviews and ratings across multiple sources.
Project analysis with local tools:
“Analyze this codebase and give me an architecture overview.”
20 tool calls: Glob to discover all source files, Bash to inspect build configs and scripts, and Read to examine key modules — producing a structured architecture document.
Enabling/Disabling Tools
Section titled “Enabling/Disabling Tools”By default, all built-in tools are available. You can control which tools are active per conversation in the conversation settings panel.
For additional tools beyond the built-ins, see MCP Integration.