Your AI agents in Thunk use tools to interact with external services and apps. In Thunk, these tools are accessed via the connections in your account or in resource environments.
Different systems have different ways of connecting to them. In Thunk, these are represented by different connection types.
Your connections are available under Account > Personal Resource Environment > Connections. From there, you can add a new connection.
Connections has a connection type:
MCP (Model Context Protocol) - this is the standard way that apps and services provide tools to AI agents.
REST API - other systems might provide a traditional software API, which can be converted to tools.
Each connection also has an authentication method (e.g. OAuth or API keys).
How to choose a connection type
Follow this guide, which starts with the simplest and easiest way.
Use an official MCP server.
Many services provide an MCP server that you can connect to out of the box. This is usually a URL that you can copy from the service.
Use a REST API with an OpenAPI spec.
If you don’t have an MCP server, you can use a REST API that has an OpenAPI spec. Thunk will automatically convert your API methods into tools.
Use a REST API without an OpenAPI spec.
If you don’t have an OpenAPI spec for your REST API, you can still access it via tools. Thunk will provide two generic tools for making HTTP requests using your API’s endpoint and credentials.
generic_get
generic_post