Tool sets & discovery

Every Particle MCP tool belongs to exactly one exposure category. Categories are the unit of tools/list advertisement: some advertise on a bare connection (default), others only when you ask for them (opt-in). But the advertisement is just a menu — every public tool is always callable by name, no matter what was advertised. Discovery is free; execution is metered and plan-gated.

Categories

Category	Exposure	Summary
`system`	always on	Discovery meta-tools: browse the full tool catalog and call any tool by name.
`podcasts`	default	Resolve podcasts, list and fetch episodes, search transcripts, and find entity mentions.
`people`	default	Resolve people and entities to canonical handles and fetch person profiles.
`companies`	default	Resolve companies and fetch company profiles with people, products, and competitors.
`topics`	default	Browse the hierarchical topic taxonomy used to classify podcast episodes.
`podcast_rankings`	default	Podcast chart rankings: current charts, movers, and ranking history.
`podcast_guests`	default	Podcast guest directory, trending guests, and per-guest appearance profiles.
`alerts`	default	Create and manage alerts that watch entities for podcast mentions or speaker appearances, preview match frequency, and review the matches an alert has caught.
`podcast_advertising`	opt-in	Podcast advertising intelligence: sponsor rosters, ad presence, and sponsor leaderboards.
`podcast_publishers`	opt-in	Podcast publisher profiles with their shows, bias profile, and suitability profile.
`podcast_ratings`	opt-in	Listener review ratings for podcasts: summaries and recent rating lists.
`podcast_bias`	opt-in	Corpus-wide political-bias views: publisher leaderboards and publishers by bias result.
`podcast_suitability`	opt-in	Corpus-wide GARM brand-suitability views: publisher leaderboards and category exposure.

A bare connection advertises system plus every default category. The five opt-in categories advertise only when selected.

Selecting categories

The selector lives on the connection — it shapes what tools/list advertises, nothing else.

Query parameters

Append ?include= (and/or ?exclude=) to the connection URL. Values are comma-separated category names, case-insensitive.

# Advertise the opt-in advertising + bias categories on top of the defaults.
https://mcp.particle.pro?include=podcast_advertising,podcast_bias

# Advertise everything.
https://mcp.particle.pro?include=all

# Hide a default category you don't want cluttering the list.
https://mcp.particle.pro?exclude=podcast_rankings

# Combine: add an opt-in category, drop a default one.
https://mcp.particle.pro?include=podcast_ratings&exclude=topics

include=all selects every declared category.
The active set is computed as defaults ∪ include − exclude.
Unknown tokens are ignored — a typo in a selector never errors tools/list; you just see the default surface for that token.
system is irremovable — exclude=system is silently ignored, so the discovery meta-tools never disappear.

Headers

Clients that can’t append query strings can send the same values as headers:

X-Particle-Include: podcast_advertising,podcast_bias
X-Particle-Exclude: podcast_rankings

The query parameter wins when both are present (query > header precedence), resolved independently for each direction (include and exclude).

Selecting exact tools

When a category is still too broad — a curated workflow that needs exactly four tools, say — the ?tools= selector pins tools/list to a comma-separated list of tool names:

# Advertise exactly these tools (plus the always-on system meta-tools).
https://mcp.particle.pro?tools=particle_podcast_resolve,particle_podcast_search_transcripts,particle_podcast_get_episode

A non-empty ?tools= selection overrides include/exclude entirely.
Named tools advertise regardless of category exposure — an opt-in tool named here shows up without its category.
The system meta-tools are always advertised alongside the selection, so discovery never disappears.
Unknown names are ignored; if every name is unknown, the selection is empty and the connection falls back to the category selectors above (defaults ∪ include − exclude).
Same header fallback (X-Particle-Tools) and query-over-header precedence as the category selectors.
And the same contract: this shapes advertisement only — every public tool stays callable by name.

This is the mechanism behind the pre-built skill bundles: each skill embeds a ?tools= URL so the agent sees only the tools its workflow needs.

Every public tool is callable by name

The selector only governs the menu (tools/list). tools/call is selector-independent: every public tool stays executable by name whether or not it was advertised on your connection. That separation is deliberate:

Discovery is free. A bare connection can learn the entire surface via particle_catalog and call any of it — no reconnection, no selector change.
Execution is metered and plan-gated. Calling a tool runs the same billing meter, pricing gate, and premium-tier gate regardless of how you reached it. Advertisement changes visibility, never entitlement.

So the opt-in categories exist to keep a default agent’s tool list focused, not to lock anything away. If your harness lets you call tools it didn’t see advertised, just call them. If it doesn’t, use the meta-tools below.

Meta-tools

Two always-on system tools make the surface self-expanding.

particle_catalog

Browse the full catalog. No arguments → the category menu; with a category → full input schemas for that category’s tools.

particle_call

Dispatch any public tool by name — the fallback for harnesses that block un-advertised tool names.

`particle_catalog`

# See every category and its tools.
particle_catalog {}

# Get the full input schema for an opt-in category before calling it.
particle_catalog { "category": "podcast_bias" }

`particle_call`

# Reach an opt-in tool when the harness blocks un-advertised tool_use names.
particle_call {
  "tool": "particle_podcast_get_bias_leaderboard",
  "arguments": { "metric": "most_right_leaning", "limit": 10 }
}

Identical metering and plan gating apply whether you call a tool directly or through particle_call.

Get started

Tools

Categories

Selecting categories

Query parameters

Headers

Selecting exact tools

Every public tool is callable by name

Meta-tools

particle_catalog

particle_call

`particle_catalog`

`particle_call`

Next steps

Tool reference

Quickstart

​Categories

​Selecting categories

​Query parameters

​Headers

​Selecting exact tools

​Every public tool is callable by name

​Meta-tools

particle_catalog

particle_call

​particle_catalog

​particle_call

​Next steps

Tool reference

Quickstart

Categories

Selecting categories

Query parameters

Headers

Selecting exact tools

Every public tool is callable by name

Meta-tools

`particle_catalog`

`particle_call`

Next steps