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Tool Explorer

Tool Explorer is a submodule that adds an admin UI for browsing and executing the tools registered on your site. It is useful for confirming that a tool is discovered, reading its inputs and outputs, checking its config schema, and running it by hand.

Enable it with:

drush en tool_explorer

Browsing requires the view tool information or administer tool permission, and the Execute operation requires administer tool. The UI lives at Configuration > Development > Tool Explorer (/admin/config/tool/explorer).

Tool list

The landing page lists every registered tool with its label, plugin ID, description, and the module that provides it. Each row has a View operation, and an Execute operation for users with administer tool.

The Tool Explorer list, showing registered tools with their ID, description, and provider.

Tool details

The View page shows the full definition of a single tool:

  • Tool Information: plugin ID, label, description, implementing class, and declared permission.
  • Input Definitions: each input's name, label, data type, whether it is required, and its description.
  • Output Definitions: each output's name, label, data type, and description.
  • Config Schema: whether a tool.plugin.<id> config schema exists for the tool. When it is missing, the page prints a suggested schema you can paste into the provider module's config/schema file.

The View page for the Greeting Tool, listing tool information, input and output definitions, and a suggested config schema.

Executing a tool

The Execute page renders a form built from the tool's input definitions, with required fields marked and descriptions shown as help text. Submit the form to run the tool as the current user. The tool's own access check still applies: a tool that denies the current user reports the denial instead of running.

The Execute form for the Greeting Tool, with a required Name field and an optional Greeting field.

Note

The Execute form reports whether execution succeeded or failed, but it does not print output values. Output can contain data the current user is not allowed to see (for example, fields on an entity they can view only partially), so the UI withholds it. Use drush tool:run when you need to inspect returned values.