Connecting to External Systems and Tools

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:

Each connection also has an** authentication method **(e.g. OAuth or API keys).

Follow this guide, which starts with the simplest and easiest way.

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.

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.

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.

Connected tools are often general — a search with many filters, or a ticket tool with many fields. If a workflow always calls one the same way, open the tool's detail and choose Customize this tool to build a Tool Wrapper that fixes the arguments you always use and leaves the AI agent only the inputs that change. See How to build a Tool Wrapper.

If a connected tool needs to download a file that only the thunk can open — an upload, or a Drive or SharePoint file — turn on Convert URLs to signed download URLs in that tool's Settings. See Pass a file to a connected tool with a signed download URL.