Resources Primitive: Read-Only Data the Host Controls
~12 min read
Resources give the AI read-only access to data — files, knowledge base snippets, query results — without handing over the ability to change anything. Unlike tools, they're typically fetched under the HOST application's control, not spontaneously by the model.
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Key points
- •Resources provide read-only data — files, knowledge base snippets, query results — with no side effects and no way to modify anything
- •Usually accessed under the HOST application's control, not spontaneously by the model, unlike tools
- •Identified by a URI or name (e.g. file://{path}), not called with free-form arguments the way tools are
- •Being read-only makes resources inherently less dangerous than tools, but privacy/permission scoping still matters
- •The host or server can restrict which resource URIs the AI is allowed to access