http

A “http” tool sends out an HTTP request to an HTTP endpoint.

About

The http tool allows you to make HTTP requests to APIs to retrieve data. An HTTP request is the method by which a client communicates with a server to retrieve or manipulate resources. Toolbox allows you to configure the request URL, method, headers, query parameters, and the request body for an HTTP Tool.

URL

An HTTP request URL identifies the target the client wants to access. Toolbox composes the request URL from the HTTP Source’s baseUrl and the HTTP Tool’s path. For example, the following config allows you to reach different paths of the same server using multiple Tools:

sources:
    my-http-source:
        kind: http
        baseUrl: https://api.example.com

tools:
    my-post-tool:
        kind: http
        source: my-http-source
        method: POST
        path: /update
        description: Tool to update information to the example API

    my-get-tool:
        kind: http
        source: my-http-source
        method: GET
        path: /search
        description: Tool to search information from the example API

Headers

An HTTP request header is a key-value pair sent by a client to a server, providing additional information about the request, such as the client’s preferences, the request body content type, and other metadata. Headers specified by the HTTP Tool are combined with its HTTP Source headers for the resulting HTTP request, and override the Source headers in case of conflict. The HTTP Tool allows you to specify headers in two different ways:

Static headers can be specified using the headers field, and will be the same for every invocation:

my-http-tool:
    kind: http
    source: my-http-source
    method: GET
    path: /search
    description: Tool to search data from API
    headers:
      Authorization: API_KEY
      Content-Type: application/json

Dynamic headers can be specified as parameters in the headerParams field. The name of the headerParams will be used as the header key, and the value is determined by the LLM input upon Tool invocation:

my-http-tool:
    kind: http
    source: my-http-source
    method: GET
    path: /search
    description: some description
    headerParams:
      - name: Content-Type # Example LLM input: "application/json"
        description: request content type
        type: string

Query parameters

Query parameters are key-value pairs appended to a URL after a question mark (?) to provide additional information to the server for processing the request, like filtering or sorting data.

Static request query parameters should be specified in the path as part of the URL itself:

my-http-tool:
    kind: http
    source: my-http-source
    method: GET
    path: /search?language=en&id=1
    description: Tool to search for item with ID 1 in English

Dynamic request query parameters should be specified as parameters in the queryParams section:

my-http-tool:
    kind: http
    source: my-http-source
    method: GET
    path: /search
    description: Tool to search for item with ID
    queryParams:
      - name: id
        description: item ID
        type: integer

Request body

The request body payload is a string that supports parameter replacement following Go template’s annotations. The parameter names in the requestBody should be preceded by “.” and enclosed by double curly brackets “{{}}”. The values will be populated into the request body payload upon Tool invocation.

Example:

my-http-tool:
    kind: http
    source: my-http-source
    method: GET
    path: /search
    description: Tool to search for person with name and age
    requestBody: |
      {
        "age": {{.age}},
        "name": "{{.name}}"
      }
    bodyParams:
      - name: age
        description: age number
        type: integer
      - name: name
        description: name string
        type: string

Formatting Parameters

Some complex parameters (such as arrays) may require additional formatting to match the expected output. For convenience, you can specify one of the following pre-defined functions before the parameter name to format it:

JSON

The json keyword converts a parameter into a JSON format.

Note

Using JSON may add quotes to the variable name for certain types (such as strings).

Example:

requestBody: |
  {
    "age": {{json .age}},
    "name": {{json .name}},
    "nickname": "{{json .nickname}}",
    "nameArray": {{json .nameArray}}
  }

will send the following output:

{
  "age": 18,
  "name": "Katherine",
  "nickname": ""Kat"", # Duplicate quotes
  "nameArray": ["A", "B", "C"]
}

Example

my-http-tool:
    kind: http
    source: my-http-source
    method: GET
    path: /search
    description: some description
    authRequired:
      - my-google-auth-service
      - other-auth-service
    queryParams:
      - name: country
        description: some description
        type: string
    requestBody: |
      {
        "age": {{.age}},
        "city": "{{.city}}"
      }
    bodyParams:
      - name: age
        description: age number
        type: integer
      - name: city
        description: city string
        type: string
    headers:
      Authorization: API_KEY
      Content-Type: application/json
    headerParams:
      - name: Language
        description: language string
        type: string

Reference

field	type	required	description
kind	string	true	Must be “http”.
source	string	true	Name of the source the HTTP request should be sent to.
description	string	true	Description of the tool that is passed to the LLM.
path	string	true	The path of the HTTP request. You can include static query parameters in the path string.
method	string	true	The HTTP method to use (e.g., GET, POST, PUT, DELETE).
headers	map[string]string	false	A map of headers to include in the HTTP request (overrides source headers).
requestBody	string	false	The request body payload. Use go template with the parameter name as the placeholder (e.g., `{{.id}}` will be replaced with the value of the parameter that has name `id` in the `bodyParams` section).
queryParams	parameters	false	List of parameters that will be inserted into the query string.
bodyParams	parameters	false	List of parameters that will be inserted into the request body payload.
headerParams	parameters	false	List of parameters that will be inserted as the request headers.

Last modified April 4, 2025: docs: fix typo in http tool (#393) (c46f271f)