Configuring custom bee tools in Chat UI

[ajshedivy]

I created a Db2 for i Bee agent using the Bee agent template and it works great! The core logic comes from the custom "IBMiTool" that leverages a new database access layer for Db2 for i called Mapepire.

IBM i agent: https://github.com/ajshedivy/bee-agent-ibmi

Here is my main question: is it possible to use custom Bee Tools like the one I created for Db2i within the chat UI? Is this already possible through the API?

On another note, Anthropic recently released MCP for connecting data sources with AI assistants, are there plans to explore this for Bee?

[ajshedivy]

My workaround at the moment is to create a simple webserver on IBM i that can talk to Db2 that accepts requests like:

curl -X POST http://HOST:PORT/api/execute-sql \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"sql": "SELECT * FROM sample.employee"}'

This will return the result set from the given SQL. The API is very similar to my "IBMiTool" used in the IBM i agent I mentioned above.

I can then create a "proxy tool" for Bee that sends requests to this endpoint:

import requests

def send_sql_query(sql_query) -> dict:
    """
    Sends a SQL statement to the Flask server and returns the result.

    Args:
        sql_query (str): The SQL statement to execute.

    Returns:
        dict: The server's response as a dictionary.
    """
    url = "http://HOST:PORT/api/execute-sql"  # Server endpoint
    headers = {"Content-Type": "application/json"}
    payload = {"sql": sql_query}

    try:
        response = requests.post(url, json=payload, headers=headers)
        response.raise_for_status() 
        return response.json()     
    except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
        return {"error": str(e)}

I created a bee agent for Db2 for i with access to this tool which works surprising well for toy examples:

[Tomas2D]

This should now be done via MCP that has been added to the framework (not sure about Bee API though, cc @pilartomas ).

In addition, this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhXKK7HAL24) + article (https://suedbroecker.net/2024/12/04/bee-api-and-ui-development-example-by-adding-a-typescript-tool/) show how you can add the tool manually to Bee API.

[ajshedivy]

@Tomas2D Thanks for the updates! I'll review this article on manually adding tools to the Bee API. Regarding MCP, it would be great to be able to add MCP server configuration as an additional tool option in the UI. Could the recent MCP updates to the Bee stack also be utilized within the Bee UI component? Specifically the MCPTool support: https://i-am-bee.github.io/bee-agent-framework/#/tools?id=using-the-mcptool-class