Tools

The tools block toggles built-in runtime tools. Each toggle is optional and defaults to true; omitted fields are filled in with defaults on load.

Fields

Field	Default	Tool(s) disabled when false
todo.enabled	true	todo — the task list tool.
fetch.enabled	true	fetch — fetching URL content.
filesystem.enabled	true	filesystem tools (read_file, write_file, edit_file, etc.) and grep, which is bundled under this same toggle.
shell.enabled	true	shell — running shell commands.
sleep.enabled	true	sleep — pausing execution for a duration.
subagents.enabled	true	subagent_research, subagent_review, subagent_test_investigator — built-in read-only subagent tools.

think, ask_user, get_current_time/convert_time, and enter_plan_mode/exit_plan_mode are always registered and have no config toggle. web_search is controlled separately by search.enabled, not by this block. MCP-provided tools and installed skills aren’t affected by tools either — see MCP and Skills.

For what each tool does and its arguments, plus the tool-approval flow (which is independent of these enable/disable toggles and not persisted in config.json), see Tools.

Example configs

Defaults (all tools on — equivalent to omitting tools entirely):

{
  "tools": {
    "todo": { "enabled": true },
    "fetch": { "enabled": true },
    "filesystem": { "enabled": true },
    "shell": { "enabled": true },
    "sleep": { "enabled": true },
    "subagents": { "enabled": true }
  }
}

Read-only setup — no shell, no filesystem writes, no subagents (only toggles the ones you want off; the rest keep their defaults):

{
  "tools": {
    "shell": { "enabled": false },
    "filesystem": { "enabled": false },
    "subagents": { "enabled": false }
  }
}