How Agent Works

Agent offers the same functionality as Chat, while also including tools in the request to the model and an interface for handling tool calls and responses.

The tool handshake

Tools provide a flexible, powerful way for models to interface with the external world. They are provided to the model as a JSON object with a name and an arguments schema. For example, a read_file tool with a filepath argument will give the model the ability to request the contents of a specific file.

The following handshake describes how Agent uses tools:

  1. In Agent mode, available tools are sent along with user chat requests

  2. The model can choose to include a tool call in its response

  3. The user gives permission. This step is skipped if the policy for that tool is set to Automatic

  4. Continue calls the tool using built-in functionality or the MCP server that offers that particular tool

  5. Continue sends the result back to the model

  6. The model responds, potentially with another tool call and step 2 begins again

In [Chat mode](/features/chat/quick-start), tools are **not** included in the request to the model.

Built-in tools

Continue includes several built-in tools which provide the model access to IDE functionality:

  • Read file (read_file): read the contents of a file within the project

  • Read currently open file (read_currently_open_file): read the contents of the currently open file

  • Create new file (create_new_file): Create a new file within the project, with path and contents specified by the model

  • Exact search (exact_search): perform a ripgrep search within the project

  • Glob search (file_glob_search): perform a glob search on files in the project. Currently limits to 100 output and warns the Agent if limit reached.

  • Run terminal command (run_terminal_command): run a terminal command from the workspace root

  • Search web (search_web): Perform a web search to get top results

  • View diff (view_diff): View the current working git diff

  • View repo map (view_repo_map): request a copy of the repository map—same as the Repo Map Context Provider

  • View subdirectory (view_subdirectory): request a copy of a repo map for a specific directory within the project

  • Create Rule Block (create_rule_block): creates a new rule block in .continue/rules based on the contents of the conversation

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