wehub-resource-sync
81 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
81 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
---
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id: tool-groups
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slug: /guides/tool-groups
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title: Tool Groups and manage_tools
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sidebar_label: Tool Groups
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description: Per-session visibility for the 47 tools. Activate vfx, animation, ui, testing, etc. only when you need them.
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---
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# Tool Groups
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MCP for Unity ships 47 tools, but exposing all of them to the LLM at once balloons the prompt and dilutes routing decisions. So tools are sorted into **groups**, and only `core` is enabled by default.
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## The groups
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| Group | Default | Description |
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|---|---|---|
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| `core` | enabled | Essential scene, script, asset, and editor tools — always on. |
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| `animation` | off | Animator control, AnimationClip creation. |
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| `ui` | off | UI Toolkit — UXML, USS, UIDocument. |
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| `vfx` | off | VFX Graph, shaders, procedural textures. |
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| `scripting_ext` | off | ScriptableObject management. |
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| `testing` | off | Test runner and async test jobs. |
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| `probuilder` | off | ProBuilder 3D modeling. Requires `com.unity.probuilder` package. |
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| `profiling` | off | Profiler session control, counters, memory snapshots, Frame Debugger. |
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| `docs` | off | Unity API reflection and documentation lookup. |
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## Enabling a group
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Use the `manage_tools` meta-tool from your prompt:
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> Activate the `vfx` group so we can author shaders.
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The assistant calls:
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```
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manage_tools(action="activate", group="vfx")
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```
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After activation, the group's tools appear in the next tool listing and are usable for the remainder of the session.
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## Listing what's available
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```
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manage_tools(action="list_groups")
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```
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Returns every group with its current activation state and tool names.
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## Deactivating
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```
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manage_tools(action="deactivate", group="vfx")
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```
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Useful when a group's tools are confusing the assistant — e.g., `manage_shader` and `manage_material` both apply to materials in different ways. Disabling the one you're not using keeps the assistant focused.
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## Other actions
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- `sync` — refreshes visibility from the Unity Editor's per-tool toggle UI. Use after toggling tools in `Window > MCP for Unity > Tools`.
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- `reset` — restores defaults (only `core` enabled).
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## Why this exists
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Three reasons:
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1. **Prompt economy**: each visible tool adds tokens to every assistant call. Hiding what you're not using is real money saved at scale.
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2. **Routing clarity**: when the LLM picks between 47 tools versus the 30 core tools, the wrong-tool rate drops measurably.
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3. **Package hygiene**: tools in `probuilder` only work if `com.unity.probuilder` is installed; hiding them by default avoids confusing errors.
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## Server vs. session state
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- The Unity Editor maintains a per-tool **toggle UI** (`Window > MCP for Unity > Tools`) that controls server-side visibility.
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- The `manage_tools` meta-tool controls **per-session** visibility — different MCP sessions can see different groups even against the same server.
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`sync` reconciles the two: it pulls the Editor's toggle states into the current session.
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## Related reference
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- [`manage_tools`](/reference/tools/core/manage_tools) — full tool reference
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- [`tool_groups` resource](/reference/resources) — discoverable group catalog
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