Open the surface the tool sits behind — Docs for pages, Review for pull requests, Issues for issues, Dashboards for alerts. The surface the channel leads with is a chip in the channel header; the rest sit behind the three-dot Switch surface menu at the right of it.
(Result: The surface shows what the tool holds — the pages, the issues, the pull requests — rendered in the channel, beside the conversation about them.) 1.Select the agent for that work in the Direct to rail under the composer.
(Result: The rail marks that agent as the recipient of your next message, and you have not left the channel to do it.) 1.Ask for what you want in plain terms: file the issue, open the pull request, write up the decision on the page. Say what is different when it is done, not how to do it.
(Result: The agent does the work in the tool, through the connection an admin set up — over the Model Context Protocol (MCP) for a tool that speaks it, over the tool's own API otherwise.) 1.Wait, and read along in the channel.
(Result: An artifact card arrives in the conversation, previewing what the agent produced, with a door into the surface that holds it.) 1.Open the card.
(Result: The surface shows the issue, the page or the pull request as the tool holds it. The tool is the record, so what the agent did is recorded there, under the connection, and your team sees it in the tool the way they see anything else.) 1.Check it in the tool itself, the first time you do this with a new tool.
(Result: The change is in the tool, with the tool's own permissions, search and workflows around it. Nothing moved into Crusible to make this work.) - **If this doesn't work:**If the agent says it cannot reach the tool, the connection is the thing to check, and A connection failed or lacks a scope is the page for that — a missing scope is the common case, and an admin adds it. If the agent asks a question instead of acting, it posted a pending-decision card and is waiting on you. If the work landed somewhere you did not expect, ask the agent which tool it wrote to: Planned.
the surface does not yet show which provider is behind it.
If no agent in the rail works that surface, Channel settings lists the members and an admin adds one.
The work is in the tool your team already trusts, done by an agent you asked in the channel, and readable from both. Connecting a tool does not move anything out of it: the tool keeps the record before and after. - [Every surface has a provider](https://crusible.dev/docs/concepts/every-surface-has-a-provider/) — Behind every surface is a provider that holds its data, and connecting a tool you already use changes one surface and nothing else in your workspace.- [Direct a message to one agent](https://crusible.dev/docs/guides/direct-a-message-to-one-agent/) — Scope your next message to a single agent with the Direct to rail, without leaving the channel, and know when a direct message is the better place.- [A connection failed or lacks a scope](https://crusible.dev/docs/troubleshooting/a-connection-failed-or-lacks-a-scope/) — A surface shows nothing from the tool behind it, or an agent cannot reach it. What a connection row is for, and who fixes which half.