Creating and Managing Abilities

Abilities allow you to extend Alan's functionality, for example to access organization-specific data and services.

An ability can be created and managed in Alan in the settings under "Abilities".

There you will find an overview of all available abilities.

By clicking on an ability, you can see all further information about this ability, e.g., a description as well as, if available, the included tools or the technical configuration. If you have the appropriate permissions, you can also edit the ability on this detail page.

Creating

To create an ability, click the "New" button in the abilities overview. First, select the kind of the ability:

• Custom: For abilities whose behavior is controlled by a prompt. For more information, see Custom Ability Configuration.
• MCP server: For abilities that connect an MCP server. For more information, see MCP Server Ability Configuration.

You will then be taken to the kind-specific configuration, where you provide all required information.

Finally, click "Save" to create the ability.

Editing

After creating an ability, you can continuously edit it and optimize its configuration.

For example, you can adjust the description of the ability or change the technical configuration.

Once you have created the ability, you can also share it.

Note

Administrators of your organization can see and use all abilities configured by users and, if desired, enforce the approval behavior for abilities.

Deleting

To delete an ability in Alan, scroll down on the ability's detail page and click "Delete ability".

Note that you can only delete abilities that you have created yourself or for which you have the delete permission, and that deleted abilities cannot be restored.