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Ashby MCP Tools for AI Agents

Let an agent search candidates, gather a debrief, read interview feedback, add notes, and move applications between stages in Ashby.

Available Tools

12 tools available in this integration

Ashby.AddCandidateNote

Add a plain-text note to a candidate (e.g. an agent handoff or summary).

Ashby.ArchiveApplication

Archive (reject) an application, recording why.

Ashby.ChangeApplicationStage

Move an application to a named interview stage, in either direction.

Ashby.CreateCandidateNote

Add a plain-text note to a candidate (e.g. an agent handoff or summary).

Ashby.GetCandidate

Get a candidate's profile and the ids of their applications.

Ashby.GetCandidateDebrief

Gather everything about a candidate for a debrief in one call.

Ashby.ListApplicationFeedback

Read the feedback and interview scorecards submitted on an application.

Ashby.ListApplications

List the organization's applications, optionally filtered by job and/or status.

Ashby.ListCandidateNotes

Read the notes recorded on a candidate, paginated via the cursor.

Ashby.ListJobs

List the organization's jobs (roles), optionally filtered by status.

Ashby.SearchCandidates

Search the organization's candidates by name and/or email.

Ashby.TransitionApplication

Move an application to a named interview stage, in either direction.

Working directly against the raw API? 141 more tools in the Ashby API server →

Why agent-optimized tools matter

Built for intent, not API schemas

Ask the agent to "review the candidates for the backend role and prepare a debrief." Arcade picks the right Ashby tools without guessing candidate IDs or application IDs.

Up to 100x fewer tokens

Ashby searches and lists return lightweight candidate, application, and job metadata by default, while debriefs, notes, and feedback are fetched only when needed, so the agent avoids loading full histories.

Complete the workflow end to end

Search candidates, inspect applications, read feedback, add notes, change stages, and archive applications through one toolkit designed around the complete recruiting task.

Make actions predictable and controlled

Arcade tools return structured results and useful errors across users and runs. Teams can apply scope restrictions, redaction, and approval policies so agents follow the same controls every time.

Securing Ashby

The more capabilities agents get, the more useful they are. However, more capabilities bring more risks of undesired effects such as data loss and exfiltration.

This is why Arcade provides you with contextual rules that dictate how and when a tool is allowed to run. Arcade’s contextual access lets you govern tool visibility and behavior at every stage of execution and control who can see a tool, what inputs are allowed, and what comes back.

Learn about Contextual Access Policies

For Ashby, you can implement some of these policies:

Access when tools are listed for a user
  • Hide Ashby.ArchiveApplication from agents unless the roles your IDP marks as recruiting leads are active, so an agent cannot reject applications without the right authority.
  • Restrict Ashby.ChangeApplicationStage to agents operating under your hiring-team role, so unapproved automation cannot move candidates into or out of interview stages.
  • Deny Ashby.AddCandidateNote to general-purpose agents, so automated workflows cannot add unreviewed claims or sensitive hiring commentary to candidate records.
  • Hide Ashby.CreateCandidateNote from agents without a recruiting-review role, so automated workflows cannot add unvetted summaries to candidate records.
  • Show Ashby.TransitionApplication only to agents operating under the roles your IDP assigns to interview coordinators, so unauthorized agents cannot alter a candidate's hiring path.
Pre-execution before each tool call
  • Require human approval before Ashby.ArchiveApplication runs, so an agent cannot reject a candidate without a person confirming the reason.
  • Block Ashby.ChangeApplicationStage when the target stage is an offer, rejected, or other terminal stage, so an agent cannot make an irreversible hiring decision through a stage change.
  • Refuse Ashby.AddCandidateNote when the note contains compensation details, protected-class information, or unverified allegations, so sensitive or unsupported claims do not enter the candidate record.
  • Require human approval before Ashby.CreateCandidateNote runs for notes generated from interview transcripts, so an agent cannot place an inaccurate assessment in a candidate's record.
  • Block Ashby.TransitionApplication when it would move an application backward to an earlier interview stage, so an agent cannot reopen a candidate's evaluation without review.
Post-execution after the tool returns
  • Redact personal phone numbers, home addresses, and other direct contact details from Ashby.GetCandidateDebrief before the model sees the candidate summary.
  • Strip interviewer names and free-text comments from Ashby.ListApplicationFeedback, so the model receives score data without exposing private reviewer remarks.
  • Redact personal email addresses and phone numbers from Ashby.SearchCandidates results before they reach the model, leaving only the candidate fields needed for matching.

How to use Ashby with your agent

Use the setup below to connect Ashby to an MCP client, authenticate once with a shared API key or secret, and run your first recruiting workflow.

Your questions, answered

An Ashby MCP server exposes recruiting capabilities as structured tools that an AI agent can call through the Model Context Protocol. With the required API credential, the agent can search candidates, review applications and feedback, add notes, change stages, and archive applications.

Ashby does not provide the MCP server used here; Arcade provides the MCP access layer and the Ashby integration. Arcade also adds credential brokering, approval policies, redaction, and controls for reaching Ashby from supported clients.

Arcade agents can list jobs and applications, search for candidates, retrieve candidate profiles and debriefs, read notes and interview feedback, add candidate notes, move applications between stages, and archive applications with a reason.

Ashby uses a shared API key or secret configured once for the integration. That credential must have the Ashby API permissions needed for the reads and writes your workflow enables; read-only work does not require write access, while notes, stage changes, and archiving do.

No. Ashby uses one shared API key or secret configured for the integration, rather than having each user authorize a separate Ashby account. Arcade brokers the credential, and the model never receives it.

Yes. Contextual Access policies can require human approval before consequential Ashby actions such as archiving an application or changing its interview stage. The call proceeds only after the policy's conditions have been satisfied.

Arcade proxies Ashby API calls and does not persist your content as part of normal tool execution. The Ashby credential is brokered and stored encrypted at rest, and the model never receives it.

Any framework or client that can connect to Arcade's MCP gateway or tool APIs works, including LangChain, OpenAI Agents, CrewAI, Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Visual Studio Code, Microsoft Copilot Studio, and GitHub Copilot.

Arcade refreshes access while the configured Ashby credential remains valid. If the key is revoked, rotated, or can no longer be used, calls stop until the credential is reconfigured.

Calls through Arcade remain subject to Ashby's API rate limits and quotas for the configured account or credential. Exact limits depend on Ashby's current policies and the credential in use.

Ready to actually ship your agent?

Connect your agent to Ashby with a shared API key, agent-optimized tools and approval controls for consequential actions.

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