Files
genai-toolbox/docs/en/getting-started/configure.md
Yuan Teoh 293c1d6889 feat!: update configuration file v2 (#2369)
This PR introduces a significant update to the Toolbox configuration
file format, which is one of the primary **breaking changes** required
for the implementation of the Advanced Control Plane.

# Summary of Changes
The configuration schema has been updated to enforce resource isolation
and facilitate atomic, incremental updates.
* Resource Isolation: Resource definitions are now separated into
individual blocks, using a distinct structure for each resource type
(Source, Tool, Toolset, etc.). This improves readability, management,
and auditing of configuration files.
* Field Name Modification: Internal field names have been modified to
align with declarative methodologies. Specifically, the configuration
now separates kind (general resource type, e.g., Source) from type
(specific implementation, e.g., Postgres).

# User Impact
Existing tools.yaml configuration files are now in an outdated format.
Users must eventually update their files to the new YAML format.

# Mitigation & Compatibility
Backward compatibility is maintained during this transition to ensure no
immediate user action is required for existing files.
* Immediate Backward Compatibility: The source code includes a
pre-processing layer that automatically detects outdated configuration
files (v1 format) and converts them to the new v2 format under the hood.
* [COMING SOON] Migration Support: The new toolbox migrate subcommand
will be introduced to allow users to automatically convert their old
configuration files to the latest format.

# Example
Example for config file v2:
```
kind: sources
name: my-pg-instance
type: cloud-sql-postgres
project: my-project
region: my-region
instance: my-instance
database: my_db
user: my_user
password: my_pass
---
kind: authServices
name: my-google-auth
type: google
clientId: testing-id
---
kind: tools
name: example_tool
type: postgres-sql
source: my-pg-instance
description: some description
statement: SELECT * FROM SQL_STATEMENT;
parameters:
- name: country
  type: string
  description: some description
---
kind: tools
name: example_tool_2
type: postgres-sql
source: my-pg-instance
description: returning the number one
statement: SELECT 1;
---
kind: toolsets
name: example_toolset
tools:
- example_tool
```

---------

Co-authored-by: gemini-code-assist[bot] <176961590+gemini-code-assist[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Averi Kitsch <akitsch@google.com>
2026-01-27 16:58:43 -08:00

2.9 KiB

title, type, weight, description
title type weight description
Configuration docs 6 How to configure Toolbox's tools.yaml file.

The primary way to configure Toolbox is through the tools.yaml file. If you have multiple files, you can tell toolbox which to load with the --tools-file tools.yaml flag.

You can find more detailed reference documentation to all resource types in the Resources.

Using Environment Variables

To avoid hardcoding certain secret fields like passwords, usernames, API keys etc., you could use environment variables instead with the format ${ENV_NAME}.

  user: ${USER_NAME}
  password: ${PASSWORD}

A default value can be specified like ${ENV_NAME:default}.

  port: ${DB_PORT:3306}

Sources

The sources section of your tools.yaml defines what data sources your Toolbox should have access to. Most tools will have at least one source to execute against.

kind: sources
name: my-pg-source
type: postgres
host: 127.0.0.1
port: 5432
database: toolbox_db
user: ${USER_NAME}
password: ${PASSWORD}

For more details on configuring different types of sources, see the Sources.

Tools

The tools section of your tools.yaml defines the actions your agent can take: what type of tool it is, which source(s) it affects, what parameters it uses, etc.

kind: tools
name: search-hotels-by-name
type: postgres-sql
source: my-pg-source
description: Search for hotels based on name.
parameters:
  - name: name
    type: string
    description: The name of the hotel.
statement: SELECT * FROM hotels WHERE name ILIKE '%' || $1 || '%';

For more details on configuring different types of tools, see the Tools.

Toolsets

The toolsets section of your tools.yaml allows you to define groups of tools that you want to be able to load together. This can be useful for defining different sets for different agents or different applications.

kind: toolsets
name: my_first_toolset
tools:
  - my_first_tool
  - my_second_tool
---
kind: toolsets
name: my_second_toolset
tools:
  - my_second_tool
  - my_third_tool

You can load toolsets by name:

# This will load all tools
all_tools = client.load_toolset()

# This will only load the tools listed in 'my_second_toolset'
my_second_toolset = client.load_toolset("my_second_toolset")

Prompts

The prompts section of your tools.yaml defines the templates containing structured messages and instructions for interacting with language models.

kind: prompts
name: code_review
description: "Asks the LLM to analyze code quality and suggest improvements."
messages:
  - content: "Please review the following code for quality, correctness, and potential improvements: \n\n{{.code}}"
arguments:
  - name: "code"
    description: "The code to review"

For more details on configuring different types of prompts, see the Prompts.