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Everything your coworker is allowed to do lives on one screen, and every line of it is a switch you control.

Narrowing a coworker down to research only — five switches off, and it can no longer send, schedule, browse or generate.

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What it does

A coworker is only as useful as the things it can reach. The Capabilities tab is where you decide what those are: whether it can search the web, run code, open a browser, email a colleague, or touch the apps your team already uses. Nothing here is hidden or implied. If a switch is off, your coworker cannot do that thing — it will tell you it can’t rather than quietly working around it.

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The three parts of the tab

Open any coworker and choose Capabilities. You’ll find three sections, in this order.
The Capabilities tab showing the eight built-in tool switches and the two Collaboration switches

The Capabilities tab. Built-in tools at the top, Collaboration below the divider — and every line of it is a switch you control.

Below those, a read-only list of the skills this coworker has learned. Skills are managed on the coworker’s Files tab — see What skills are.

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The two rules that surprise people

What starts switched on depends on how you hired.Build a coworker from scratch and every built-in tool is on. You narrow it down; you don’t build it up.Hire one of the ready-made coworkers and it arrives already narrowed to what that job needs. A Research Analyst, for instance, comes with web search, reading pages, and code and files on — and self-scheduling, image generation, workflows and talking to people off, because a research job doesn’t need them.Either way, check this tab before the first task. It’s the fastest way to understand what you’ve actually hired.
Changes apply to the next task. A task that’s already running keeps the tools it started with. If you switch something on and the coworker still says it can’t do it, start a new task.
The second one accounts for most “why didn’t that work” moments. The tab says so under the section heading, but it’s easy to miss when you’re mid-flow.

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The eight built-in tools

Each is one switch, one line of explanation, and its own page here.

Web search

Look things up instead of guessing.

Reading web pages

Open a link and read it properly.

Code and files

Actually do the work — open a spreadsheet, run the numbers, hand the file back.

The live browser

Use websites the way you do, and hand you the keyboard at a login.

Generating images

Ask for a picture, get a file you can use.

Self-scheduling

Book its own follow-up so nothing waits on you remembering.

Workflows and flows

Use the automations you’ve already built.

Talking to people

Hold a real conversation with a real person and carry on from the answer.
There’s a ninth row in this section, Skill consolidation, which is off by default. It’s a periodic tidy-up of the skills this coworker has written for itself — see Skills that improve themselves.

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Collaboration: off until you say so

Two switches sit under a separate heading, and they behave differently from the eight above. Both are off when you hire a coworker, and the tab tells you why in plain terms: each one puts more than this coworker to work, and costs accordingly.

Working with coworkers

Hand work to another coworker and follow it as it goes.

Dynamic workflows

Plan a team of temporary helpers for a job too big for one pass.
The Collaboration section with Work with coworkers and Dynamic workflows both switched off

Both Collaboration switches start off, and the tab says why — each one puts more than this coworker to work.

Dynamic workflows needs Code and files. Turn it on without that, and the row shows an honest warning rather than pretending it works:
Needs “Code and files” turned on above to do anything.
The Dynamic workflows row switched on, showing a warning that it needs Code and files

An honest warning rather than a switch that reads as on while nothing happens.

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App connections

Underneath, the apps this coworker may use — Gmail, Slack, your CRM, a spreadsheet. Attaching an app gives your coworker every action it supports by default, and you can narrow that to individual actions whenever you like. This is the part most worth spending five minutes on, because it’s where you decide whether a coworker can read your inbox or also send from it. See Connecting your apps.

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What it looks like in practice

Each row is the same shape: an icon that lights up in colour when the capability is on and greys out when it’s off, the name, one line explaining it, and the switch. A couple of rows carry an extra button — Talking to people has Set up channels, which opens its settings inline without leaving the tab.
The Web search row shown switched on above the same row switched off

The same row on and off. The colour is the fastest way to read the tab at a glance.

Changes save the moment you flip a switch. There’s no Save button and no confirmation step.

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Good to know

Narrowing a coworker makes it better, not weaker. A shorter list of capabilities is a clearer job description. A coworker with fifteen apps attached spends effort deciding which one to reach for; a coworker with two does the job.
Capabilities are per coworker, not per workspace. Two coworkers can hold the same Gmail connection with completely different actions allowed on each.

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Common questions

Because the task was already running when you flipped the switch. A task keeps the capabilities it started with, all the way to the end. Start a new task and it’ll be there.
Yes, for anything clearly outside its job. A support coworker has no use for image generation. It keeps the coworker focused and means fewer surprises.
Built-in tools cost nothing until they’re used. The two Collaboration switches are different — they put additional coworkers or helpers to work, so a task that uses them costs more than one that doesn’t. That’s why they start off.
A capability is something your coworker can do. A skill is knowing how and when to do it — your way of working, written down. A coworker usually needs both: a “customer follow-up” skill is only useful alongside the ability to send email.
Yes. Permission rules let you keep a capability on but require your approval each time, or block one specific action while allowing the rest. See Permission rules.

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Next steps

Connecting your apps

The part worth five minutes of your time.

Permission rules

Keep a capability on, but on your terms.

Approvals

What needs your yes before it happens.

Giving instructions

Capabilities are what it can do. This is what it should do.