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Tool Catalogs

Tool catalogs define the operational resources NOCFoundry loads at startup.

Supported catalog flags

  • --tools-file
  • --tools-files
  • --tools-folder
  • --prebuilt

These are mutually exclusive where appropriate:

  • --tools-file, --tools-files, and --tools-folder cannot be combined
  • --prebuilt can be combined with custom tool catalogs when you want bundled capabilities plus your own configs

What a catalog can contain

Tool catalogs can define:

  • sources
  • device groups
  • auth services
  • tools
  • toolsets
  • prompts
  • promptsets
  • embedding models

Prebuilt catalogs

--prebuilt takes a bundled catalog name, not an individual tool name.

Current bundled prebuilt catalogs:

  • validation-runs

For example, this is valid:

./nocfoundry --prebuilt validation-runs

This is not valid:

./nocfoundry --prebuilt start_validation_run

because start_validation_run is a tool inside the validation-runs prebuilt catalog, not the catalog name itself.

Merge behavior

When multiple files are loaded through --tools-files or --tools-folder, NOCFoundry merges the resource sets into one runtime catalog. Resource names must remain unique inside their kind.

Prebuilt catalogs are merged into that same runtime catalog. This means:

  • users can start NOCFoundry with --prebuilt plus their own tool catalog in one command
  • duplicate resource names across prebuilt and custom configs fail with a conflict error
  • server-scoped auth policy in --server-config still requires matching authServices to be present in the loaded tool catalogs

Example: merge the bundled validation lifecycle tools with a custom validation definition:

./nocfoundry \
  --prebuilt validation-runs \
  --tools-file examples/tools-configs/keycloak-protected-validation.yaml \
  --server-config examples/server-configs/protected-api-mcp-ui.yaml \
  --validation-config examples/validation-runtime-configs/durable-validation-sqlite.yaml \
  --ui

In that combined startup:

  • validation-runs contributes:
    • start_validation_run
    • validation_run_status
    • validation_run_result
    • cancel_validation_run
  • your custom tool catalog contributes:
    • maintenance_validation
    • noc-keycloak
    • any additional prompts, toolsets, or device groups

If the custom tool catalog already defines the same validation-run lifecycle tools, the merge will fail. NOCFoundry does not silently alias or override duplicate resources.

  • keep lab and production catalogs separate
  • keep tool catalogs focused on operational resources, not server policy
  • put /api, /mcp, and UI auth policy in --server-config
  • use --prebuilt for small generic operational bundles, and keep richer end-to-end workflows in examples/

Reference examples