Toolset

Group multiple Tools into a single unit.

Mandatory init variables	tools: A list of tools
API reference	Toolset
GitHub link	https://github.com/deepset-ai/haystack/blob/main/haystack/tools/toolset.py
Package name	haystack-ai

Overview

A Toolset groups multiple Tool instances into a single manageable unit. It simplifies passing tools to components like Chat Generators or Agent, and supports filtering, serialization, and reuse.

Additionally, by subclassing Toolset, you can create implementations that dynamically load tools from external sources like OpenAPI URLs, MCP servers, or other resources.

Initializing Toolset

Here’s how to initialize Toolset with Tool. Alternatively, you can use ComponentTool or MCPTool in Toolset as Tool instances.

python

from typing import Annotated
from haystack.tools import Toolset, tool


@tool
def add_numbers(
    a: Annotated[int, "first number"],
    b: Annotated[int, "second number"],
) -> int:
    """Add two numbers."""
    return a + b


@tool
def subtract_numbers(
    a: Annotated[int, "first number"],
    b: Annotated[int, "second number"],
) -> int:
    """Subtract b from a."""
    return a - b


math_toolset = Toolset([add_numbers, subtract_numbers])

Adding New Tools to Toolset

python

from typing import Annotated
from haystack.tools import tool


@tool
def multiply_numbers(
    a: Annotated[int, "first number"],
    b: Annotated[int, "second number"],
) -> int:
    """Multiply two numbers."""
    return a * b


math_toolset.add(multiply_numbers)

# or, you can merge toolsets together
math_toolset.add(another_toolset)

Run-Scoped Copies and Tool Selection

A Toolset is never mutated in place during an Agent run. Each run operates on an isolated, run-scoped copy of the configured Toolset, created with the spawn() method. This makes concurrent runs that share the same Toolset instance safe: per-run state, such as an active tool-name selection or a SearchableToolset's discovered tools, cannot leak or collide across runs.

You can also restrict an Agent to a subset of tools at runtime by passing tool names, for example agent.run(tools=["tool_a", "tool_b"]). When a Toolset is configured, the selection is applied to the live (run-scoped) Toolset rather than flattening it into a static list, so dynamic behavior like a SearchableToolset's search and lazy loading keeps working over the selected subset.

Two methods support this and can be overridden when subclassing:

• get_selectable_tools(): Returns every tool available for name-based selection, ignoring any active selection restriction. Override it if your subclass's iteration does not surface every selectable tool.
• spawn(): Returns an isolated, run-scoped copy of the Toolset. Override it if your subclass holds additional run-scoped state.

Usage

You can use Toolset wherever you can use Tools in Haystack.

tip

The recommended way to use a Toolset in Haystack is with the Agent component, which manages the tool call loop for you. The examples below also show how to pass a Toolset directly to a ChatGenerator for cases where you need fine-grained control.

With the Agent

python

from haystack.components.agents import Agent
from haystack.dataclasses import ChatMessage
from haystack.components.generators.chat import OpenAIChatGenerator

agent = Agent(
    system_prompt="You are a helpful assistant that can do math using the tools at your disposal.",
    chat_generator=OpenAIChatGenerator(model="gpt-5.4-nano"),
    tools=math_toolset,
)

response = agent.run(messages=[ChatMessage.from_user("What is 4 + 2?")])

print(response["messages"][-1].text)

Output:

4 + 2 equals 6.

With a ChatGenerator

You can pass a Toolset directly to a Chat Generator. The model prepares the tool calls; executing them (for example, with Tool.invoke) is up to you:

python

from haystack.components.generators.chat import OpenAIChatGenerator
from haystack.dataclasses import ChatMessage

chat_generator = OpenAIChatGenerator(model="gpt-5.4-nano", tools=math_toolset)

user_message = ChatMessage.from_user("What is 10 minus 5?")

replies = chat_generator.run(messages=[user_message])["replies"]
print(f"assistant message: {replies}")

# If the assistant message contains a tool call, execute it
if replies[0].tool_calls:
    tool_call = replies[0].tool_calls[0]
    tool = next(t for t in math_toolset if t.name == tool_call.tool_name)
    print(f"tool result: {tool.invoke(**tool_call.arguments)}")

Output:

assistant message: [ChatMessage(
    _role=<ChatRole.ASSISTANT: 'assistant'>,
    _content=[ToolCall(tool_name='subtract', arguments={'a': 10, 'b': 5}, id='call_awGa5q7KtQ9BrMGPTj6IgEH1')],
    _meta={'model': 'gpt-5.4-nano', 'index': 0, 'finish_reason': 'tool_calls', 'usage': {'completion_tokens': 18, 'prompt_tokens': 75, 'total_tokens': 93}}
)]
tool result: 5

In a Pipeline

python

from haystack import Pipeline
from haystack.components.agents import Agent
from haystack.components.generators.chat import OpenAIChatGenerator
from haystack.dataclasses import ChatMessage

pipeline = Pipeline()
pipeline.add_component(
    "agent",
    Agent(
        chat_generator=OpenAIChatGenerator(model="gpt-5.4-nano"),
        tools=math_toolset,
    ),
)

user_input_msg = ChatMessage.from_user(text="What is 2+2?")

result = pipeline.run({"agent": {"messages": [user_input_msg]}})

print(result["agent"]["last_message"].text)

Output:

2 + 2 equals 4.