Add Tools

A workspace’s power comes from the tools inside it. You can add MCP servers from the marketplace, your own external servers, workflow skills, and community functions. Every tool you add is instantly available to all connected clients.

How Adding Tools Works

When you add a server to a workspace, its tools become part of the workspace’s unified tool list. A client calling tools/list on the gateway sees tools from all enabled servers merged together. Adding or removing a server takes effect immediately — no restarts, no redeployments.

Types of Tools

Type	Source	Example
Community MCP Servers	Published on the Aerostack Hub marketplace	GitHub, Stripe, Notion, Linear
External MCP Servers	Your own MCP server running anywhere	A custom server at `https://my-api.com/mcp`
Skills	Workflow-powered tools deployed to Aerostack	A “daily digest” skill that aggregates data
Functions	Community functions from the marketplace	A currency converter, a sentiment analyzer

Add a Server via Dashboard

Open Your Workspace

Navigate to Workspaces in the Admin dashboard and select the workspace you want to add tools to.
Browse Available Servers

Click Add Server. You will see a list of available MCP servers — community servers from the marketplace, your own published servers, and any team servers shared with you.
Select a Server

Click a server to add it. If the server requires API keys or tokens to function, you will be prompted to configure secrets.
Configure Secrets (If Needed)

If the server needs credentials (for example, a GitHub server needs a GITHUB_TOKEN), select which workspace secrets to inject. You can create new secrets on the spot or use existing ones.
Done

The server is added and its tools are immediately available to all connected clients. There is no need to reconnect or restart anything — the next tools/list call will include the new tools.

Add a Server via CLI

# Add a community MCP server by its slug
aerostack workspace server add my-workspace @aerostack/github

# Add with secret injection
aerostack workspace server add my-workspace @aerostack/github --secrets GITHUB_TOKEN

# Add a community function (auto-wrapped as a tool)
aerostack workspace function add my-workspace my-function-slug

Tool Namespacing

When multiple servers expose tools with the same name (for example, both a GitHub and GitLab server might have a create_issue tool), collisions would occur. The gateway prevents this by namespacing every tool:

{serverSlug}__{toolName}

Examples:

Server Slug	Original Tool	Namespaced Tool
`github`	`create_issue`	`github__create_issue`
`gitlab`	`create_issue`	`gitlab__create_issue`
`stripe`	`create_customer`	`stripe__create_customer`
`my-function`	`run`	`my-function__run`

The double underscore (__) is the delimiter. When you call tools/call with the namespaced name, the gateway strips the prefix, routes to the correct upstream server, and returns the result.

Enable and Disable Servers

You can temporarily disable a server without removing it from the workspace. A disabled server’s tools are excluded from tools/list and tools/call.

This is useful when:

A server is misbehaving and you want to isolate it
You want to limit a bot’s tool access without reconfiguring the workspace
You are testing and want to toggle tools on and off

Dashboard

Open the workspace, find the server in the list, and toggle the Enabled switch.

CLI

# Disable a server
aerostack workspace server disable my-workspace github

# Re-enable it
aerostack workspace server enable my-workspace github

Reorder Servers

Control the display order of servers in your workspace. The order affects how tools appear in the merged tool list.

Each server has a display_order value (0 to 9999, lower numbers first). Update it from the dashboard by dragging servers, or via the CLI:

aerostack workspace server reorder my-workspace github --order 0
aerostack workspace server reorder my-workspace stripe --order 1
aerostack workspace server reorder my-workspace notion --order 2

Remove a Server

Removing a server from a workspace removes the link only. The MCP server itself is not deleted — you can re-add it later.

Dashboard

Open the workspace, find the server, and click the Remove button.

CLI

aerostack workspace server remove my-workspace github

Test Server Connectivity

Before relying on a server, verify that it is reachable and responding correctly.

Dashboard

Open the workspace, find the server, and click Test Connection. The dashboard shows whether the server is reachable and lists the tools it exposes.

CLI

aerostack workspace server test my-workspace github

Server: github
Status: OK
Tools:  5
  - create_issue
  - list_repos
  - search_code
  - get_pr
  - merge_pr

If the test fails, the output includes the error (for example, HTTP 401: Unauthorized if the server’s API key is wrong or missing).

Visibility Rules

Not every server can be added to every workspace:

Server Visibility	Who Can Add It
Public	Anyone
Private	Only the server owner
Team	The server owner and their active team members

If you try to add a server you do not have access to, the dashboard shows an error and the CLI returns a 403 status.

Limits

Plan	Max Servers per Workspace
Free	5
Starter	15
Pro	50
Business	200
Enterprise	Unlimited

When you reach the limit, you need to remove an existing server or upgrade your plan to add more.

Instant Propagation

Changes to a workspace’s tool configuration propagate immediately. There is no cache delay and no need to restart connected clients. The next tools/list or tools/call request will reflect the updated configuration.

This means you can:

Add a new server and use its tools immediately
Disable a misbehaving server and stop it from being called
Rotate a secret and have it take effect on the next tool call