Create a capability

This walks through creating a new capability that calls an external API. The capability starts as a Draft, runs in a test sandbox, and is ready to be published once you’re happy with it.

Before you start

• A user role that can edit Capabilities (typically Admin)
• The base URL and authentication details of the external API you want to call
• A sample request that you know works — Postman, curl, or your engineering team can supply one

Steps

1. Open Settings → Capabilities.
2. Click New capability in the top-right.
3. Give the capability a clear name and description. The name is what specialists see when you assign capabilities to them, so make it task-shaped: Look up order, Cancel subscription, Track delivery. The description tells the AI when to use it.
4. Choose a build mode:
   Simple Tool — a single-form interface for “call this endpoint and return the result” capabilities. Pick this if your capability is one API call with no branching or transformation.
   Visual canvas — a drag-and-drop canvas for anything more involved (multiple calls, branches, loops). See Node types reference.
5. Configure the API. You can:
   Upload an OpenAPI (Swagger) spec — Atender parses it and creates endpoint definitions automatically.
   Provide a documentation URL — Atender reads the docs and builds endpoint definitions.
   Paste raw documentation — for APIs without a formal spec.
6. Set the authentication — auth type (API Key / Bearer / Basic / OAuth2 / Custom Header) and auth mode (External OAuth / Proxy Auth / Full Access / Custom).
7. Define the inputs — the parameters a specialist must provide when calling the capability. Each input has a name, a type, and a description. The AI uses the description to decide what value to pass.
8. Define the outputs — the fields the capability returns to the specialist. Pluck from the API response and rename them so the AI sees clean, well-named values.
9. Set the security level and any identity verification you need (email, order number, zip code).
10. Click Save as Draft. You’re not live yet — Drafts aren’t callable from any specialist.

Verify it worked

You should see your new capability in the list at Settings → Capabilities with a Draft badge. Open it and confirm:

• The inputs and outputs match what you intended
• The authentication is set up correctly (the API connection test, if you ran one, should show green)
• The description clearly explains when the capability should be used

The capability isn’t usable yet — Drafts can’t be assigned to specialists. Move it through testing and publish it next.

Troubleshooting

• Symptom: The OpenAPI parser doesn’t pick up any endpoints. Fix: Check the spec URL is reachable from the public internet and that the file is valid OpenAPI (3.0 or 2.0). Paste the raw spec text into the editor as a fallback.

• Symptom: Authentication fails when you try a test call. Fix: Confirm the auth type matches what the API expects (Bearer vs API Key is the most common mix-up) and that the credential value doesn’t have whitespace or a wrapping "Bearer " prefix already in it.

• Symptom: The AI calls the capability with the wrong values. Fix: Improve the input descriptions. The AI picks values based on what each input means — vague names like id lead to wrong assumptions; descriptions like “The customer’s order number, e.g. ORD-12345” lead to the right ones.

See also

• Test and publish a capability
• Node types reference
• Authentication options
• Order lookup recipe