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AI Tools & MCP Integration

AI Tools & MCP Integration

Learn how AI tools connect with Foreman’s MCP to access real project data, manage permissions, and automate tasks across projects, files, members, and QA workflows.

What are tools?

Tools are the AI's hands. When you ask "list my projects", the AI doesn't hallucinate an answer — it calls the get_projects tool, which runs on Foreman's server, queries Autodesk Construction Cloud, and returns real data. The AI then summarises that data in its reply.

Every tool call is:

Scoped to your identity — the AI only sees what you can see.
Logged — shown inline in the thread (e.g. "Looking up projects…") and recorded in tool usage analytics.
Cancellable — the Stop button aborts the current reply, including any in-flight tool calls.

Categories of tools

Foreman Assistant has 80+ tools covering:

Category	Examples	Typical prompts
Projects & hubs	`get_projects`, `get_hubs`, `create_project`	"List my projects", "What hubs am I in?"
Files & folders	`search_files`, `browse_project_folders`, `get_file_download_url`, `read_file_content`	"Find the Snowdon arch drawings", "Summarise the latest drawing in @acme"
Members & roles	`get_project_members`, `add_project_members`, `get_role_options`	"Who can edit files in Project X?", "Add user@example.com as a member"
Access requests	`get_access_requests`, `review_access_request`, `bulk_approve_access_requests`	"Any pending access requests?", "Approve all from example.com"
Transmittals	`get_transmittals`, `get_transmittal`, `get_transmittal_recipients`, `get_transmittal_folders`, `get_transmittal_documents`	"List transmittals on Project X", "Who was on the last transmittal?"
QA / QC	`run_qa_check`, `get_qa_check_results`, `get_qa_dashboard_stats`	"Run a QA check on the drawings folder", "Summarise this month's violations"
Attribute extract	`add_qa_rule`, `create_qa_ruleset`, `export_qa_check_csv`	"Extract file metadata for the Docs folder"
Scheduled jobs	`get_scheduled_jobs`, `create_scheduled_job`, `run_scheduled_job_now`	"Show me scheduled jobs", "Create a daily extract job"
Feedback	`submit_feedback`, `list_my_feedback`, `get_feedback_item`	"Something's broken — can you file it?", "What have I submitted?"
Help center	`search_help_articles`, `get_help_article`	"How do I set up 2FA?", "Walk me through project matrix"
System	`check_aps_connection`, `get_aps_sign_in_url`, `get_storage_analytics`	"Am I connected to Autodesk?", "How much storage am I using?"
Downloadable artifacts	`create_artifact`	"Give me a CSV of members", "Export this as JSON"

Highlighted capabilities

read_file_content — fetches and extracts text from any file already in an APS project: PDFs (with Tesseract OCR fallback for scans), Excel (xlsx/xls), Word (docx), PowerPoint (pptx), plus common text/code formats. Returns up to 256 KB per call with pageStart/pageEnd for PDFs and sheetName/rowOffset/rowLimit for spreadsheets, so the AI can drill into large files across multiple tool calls. You don't need to upload — ask about a file in a project and it pulls content directly.
submit_feedback — the Assistant detects complaints ("that didn't work", error outputs) or suggestions ("I wish…", "can you add…") and proactively offers to file a BugReport or FeatureRequest against the Foreman feedback board. It previews the title and description, waits for your confirmation, and calls list_my_feedback first to check for duplicates. See Feedback Board for the resulting item lifecycle.
Transmittals (read-only) — list and inspect transmittals, their recipients, folders, and the file versions they contain. Useful for "what went out last week?" or "who was on that transmittal?".

Admins also get access to administrative tools for tenant management, billing, user approval, and system logs. These don't appear in your tool list unless you have an admin role on the Foreman tenant.

Browsing available tools

Go to MCP Settings → Tools tab to see the full current list — each tool's name, description, and the parameters it accepts. This page is the single source of truth; if a tool doesn't show up there, it isn't available to either Foreman Assistant or external MCP clients.

Disabling specific tools

You can turn off specific tools per user, which hides them from both Foreman Assistant and any MCP client authenticated as you.

Open MCP Settings → Tools.
Un-tick any tool you want hidden.
Save.

Why you might disable a tool:

A tool is surfacing data you don't want the AI to summarise (privacy).
You want to force the AI to use a specific alternative (e.g. disable search_files so it falls back to browse_project_folders).
A tool is misbehaving and you want to stop calling it while support investigates.

Globally disabled tools (e.g. debug_env_vars) and chat-only tools (create_artifact) are not shown on this page.

Foreman Assistant vs external MCP clients

Foreman Assistant is one of several MCP clients. If you use Claude Desktop, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, or any other MCP-capable tool, you can connect them directly to Foreman's MCP server from MCP Settings → Configuration.

Feature	Foreman Assistant	External MCP client
Same 80+ tools	✓	✓
Downloadable artifacts (`create_artifact`)	✓	✗ (client-specific)
Browser notifications	✓	✗
Uses your Foreman login	✓	OAuth or PAT
Token budget counted against Foreman plan	✓	✗ (uses your Anthropic/host budget)
Session-scoped artifacts & attachments	✓	✗

When to use which:

Foreman Assistant — quick lookups, generating files, walking through Foreman features, asking about your data.
External MCP client — coding tasks, multi-hour sessions, large content generation, workflows already set up in your chosen IDE/host.

If you disable a tool in MCP Settings, the setting applies to both Foreman Assistant and your external MCP connections. They share the same per-user tool mask.

How the AI picks which tool to call

The model sees descriptions of all available tools and decides at each step. It may:

Call one tool for a simple question ("list my projects" → get_projects).
Chain multiple tools for compound requests ("who's in Project X, and what reviews are open?" → get_projects + get_project_members + get_reviews).
Call a tool then refuse to use the result if it conflicts with its instructions.

Tool calling is capped at 10 round-trips per reply. If a task genuinely needs more, the AI will typically stop and tell you what it still needs to do — re-prompt to continue.

Skip the lookup with `@` mentions

If you already know which project you want to operate on, tag it with @alias in your message (e.g. @acme what's my biggest folder?). Foreman resolves the alias to its project and hub IDs before the AI sees the message, so the AI can go straight to the specific tool (search_files, browse_project_folders, …) without first calling get_projects. See Slash Commands & @ Mentions for details.

When tools fail

Tool failures are reported inline in the AI's response. Common failure modes:

Authentication required — your Autodesk token has expired. The AI will automatically call get_aps_sign_in_url and surface the sign-in link.
Access denied — the tool hit data you don't have permission to read. The AI will tell you which permission is missing.
Not enabled for MCP — the specific project isn't MCP-enabled for your account. The AI will point you at MCP Settings to enable it.
Network or timeout — a transient server error. Re-ask.

Safety and limits

Destructive tool calls (add members, approve requests, push issues, delete jobs) still require the underlying Foreman permission. The AI cannot elevate privileges.
The AI won't call tools you've disabled — they don't appear in its tool list at all.
Every message's token count is recorded against your monthly AI budget. See Usage, Limits, and Costs for the per-tier budget numbers.