App Tools

App Tools extensions let your app expose custom tools that Aria can discover and invoke on behalf of Wix users in the site dashboard. When a Wix user asks Aria for help with something your app's tools can do, Aria calls your tools with the relevant input and uses the response to answer or take action. Any functionality your app can perform, you can expose as a tool, including retrieving data, running workflows, completing actions, and calling 3rd-party APIs and services.

For example, an app integrated with a shipping carrier can declare a package-tracking tool. When a Wix user asks Aria "Where's my package?", Aria identifies the tool and asks for the tracking number. Aria then calls the tool and tells the Wix user the shipment status without them leaving the dashboard.

How App Tools work

A tool is a method in your app that performs an action. You give each tool a methodName so Aria can identify which method to call.

App Tools requires you to set up the following extensions:

• App Tools extension: Declares the tools your app exposes, including each tool's methodName, description, and optional request and response schemas. See About App Tools Extensions in Build Apps.
• Tools Provider service plugin: The runtime handler Wix calls when Aria invokes a tool. See About the Tools Provider Service Plugin in the API reference.

For how Aria discovers and calls tools at runtime, see About App Tools Extensions and the sample flows in the reference.

App Tools across development paths

The development path determines how you add App Tools:

• Sites: Don't add App Tools directly. To give Aria custom tools in a site's dashboard, create a private app that declares the App Tools extension and the Tools Provider service plugin, and install that app on the site.
• Wix-managed headless projects:
  • Full Wix integration (Astro): Add App Tools as backend extensions through the CLI. The CLI scaffolds both the declaration extension and the Tools Provider service plugin. See Add App Tools Extensions with the CLI in Go Headless.
  • Other frameworks: Don't support App Tools directly. Follow the same approach as self-managed headless projects.
• Self-managed headless projects: Configure the App Tools extension and the Tools Provider extension in the app dashboard, and implement the runTool handler on your own backend. See About the Tools Provider Service Plugin in the API reference.
• Wix-managed apps: Add App Tools through the CLI. The CLI scaffolds both the declaration extension and the Tools Provider service plugin. See Add App Tools Extensions with the CLI in Build Apps.
• Self-managed apps: Configure the App Tools extension and the Tools Provider extension in the app dashboard, and implement the runTool handler on your own backend. See About the Tools Provider Service Plugin in the API reference.
• Blocks apps: Don't support App Tools extensions in their backend. An app that uses Blocks for UI can still expose tools by adding a CLI or self-hosted component for the App Tools extension and the Tools Provider service plugin.

See also

• About Aria
• About App Tools Extensions
• About the Tools Provider Service Plugin
• About Backend Extensions
• Service Plugins