Tool Display Templates

tool_display is an optional root-level block in the workflow configuration that customizes the short labels you see next to tool activity. For example, it could display “Searching catalog…” instead of default tool names.

You can supply different wording while the tool is running or while it's waiting on approval.

Example

This workflow sets custom label text for two MCP tools: search_catalog and publish_report:

{
  "name": "Tool Display Demo",
  "orchestrator": {
    "name": "Tool Display Demo",
    "model_settings": {
      "ai_provider": "openai",
      "name": "gpt-5-mini",
      "api_key": {
        "owner_type": "project",
        "owner_id": "<your-project-id>",
        "path": "secret/Custom/<openai-api-key-secret-id>/value"
      }
    },
    "system_prompt": "You help users search the catalog and publish reports when requested.",
    "mcp_tools": {
      "demo_server": {
        "mcp_config": {
          "transport": "streamable-http",
          "url": "https://your-mcp-server.example/mcp"
        },
        "tools": {
          "include": ["^search_catalog$", "^publish_report$"]
        },
        "approval_required_tools": {
          "include": ["^publish_report$"]
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "tool_display": {
    "templates": {
      "search_catalog": "Searching catalog…",
      "publish_report": {
        "executing": "Publishing report…",
        "deferred": "Approval needed to publish report"
      }
    },
    "generate_display_strings": false
  }
}

You can also set generate_display_strings to true to have Chariot draft labels with a model. Supply model_settings (see Models):

"tool_display": {
  "generate_display_strings": true,
  "model_settings": {
    "ai_provider": "openai",
    "name": "gpt-5-nano",
    "api_key": {
      "owner_type": "project",
      "owner_id": "<your-project-id>",
      "path": "secret/Custom/<openai-api-key-secret-id>/value"
    }
  }
}

Field reference

templates (optional)

The templates field is a map from the tool name to the text Chariot should show. You can use either a single string, or if it is a tool that requires approval, use a small object to capture executing and deferred states as shown in the example.

generate_display_strings (optional)

false (the default): Use only your templates strings for the labels.

true: Automatically generate labels using a large language model. In this case, you'll need to supply the model_settings block (see Models).