Abilities

How abilities work

You don't press a button to use an ability. You ask in plain language, for example "find me this week's news on…" or "email Sam the summary". The sidekick picks the right ability, runs it and tells you what happened. Many abilities also show a small card in the chat with live progress, results or a draft to approve.

There are two kinds:

• Active abilities are used during a conversation, when someone asks for something.
• Ambient abilities run in the background: after a conversation ends, or on a schedule. For example, UserSense quietly learns about each user after a conversation.

Adding abilities to a sidekick

You can also turn abilities on in step 5 of the Create Sidekick wizard.

Ability Settings

Press Edit on any ability card to open Ability Settings. Every ability has these options:

Below those, many abilities have their own settings, such as an example article, brand colours or store keys. They're described in the list below.

The Abilities page

Use this page for an overview across all your sidekicks. Filter by type, scope (global abilities are shared by every workspace; client abilities belong to yours) and phase (Active or Ambient). Under each card you can see which sidekicks have it on. Press Edit to change which of your sidekicks get the ability and whether it's Admin Only.

Settings for a shared ability, such as keys and examples, are set per sidekick on that sidekick's Abilities tab. The page tells you this: "This ability is shared by every workspace. Set it up for a sidekick on that sidekick's page, under Abilities."

Abilities, one by one

Perplexity Search

Searches the live web for anything that may have changed recently: news, prices, listings and events. It uses your own Perplexity API key, which you add under Settings → API Keys. Ask things like "What happened with the Fed rate decision today?"

Content Catalyst Champion+

Writes research-backed articles from a topic, a link, an audio file or a document you upload in the chat. It researches the subject, plans the structure, drafts, fact-checks and polishes. You get the finished article in a card in the chat.

• Writing Instructions (optional): house rules such as tone, audience, length or words to avoid.
• Example Article: paste a 2,000–3,000-word article you like. Content Catalyst copies its style, not its content.
• With audio, it works out who is speaking and asks you to confirm names before writing.
• An admin can tick "Also add this document to the sidekick's knowledge base" when uploading a document.
• To change a finished article, just ask, for example "make the intro shorter".

Image Catalyst

Creates images from a description, either polished marketing-style images such as thumbnails or open-ended creative pictures. You can attach reference images. Under Image Catalyst Brand Style you can set up to five Brand Colors and a style description, and they're applied to every image this sidekick makes.

Document Search

Finds the documents in your knowledge base that literally contain certain words or phrases, and shows the exact passages. Use it when you need to know which documents mention something, not only what the sidekick knows. It supports quoted phrases, several words, OR, and -word to exclude. Visitors can get the same search on its own page; see AI Search Pages.

Email

Lets the sidekick send email from its own address. Turn on Email in the Connections tab first to give it an address.

• The first email to a new address is drafted for you to approve, depending on When it asks before acting.
• Replies come back to the sidekick and are forwarded to the person who asked for the email.
• Each sidekick can send up to 25 emails a day.

Scheduled Tasks

Lets the sidekick create, snooze, reschedule, skip and complete reminders in conversation, for example "remind me every Friday to submit invoices" or "I already took the trash out". See Scheduled Tasks.

Connected apps (MCP)

Many services offer an MCP server, a standard way for AI assistants to use them. Social schedulers, note apps, project tools and documentation sites are common examples. To add a new one, email help@sidekickforge.com with the service's MCP server address and we'll add it as an ability. Once it's on your sidekick, open its Edit to connect it:

1. Enter its Server URL.
2. Pick an Authentication method: None (public server), API token (paste it into Auth Token (optional)), or Sign in with the vendor (OAuth), then press Connect.
3. Press Refresh tools to list what the server offers.
4. Mark each tool Allow, and Confirm first for anything that changes data. Confirm first is pre-selected for every tool the server doesn't declare read-only.

The sidekick only gets the tools you allowed.

WooCommerce Shop Assistant

Searches your shop and recommends products as cards in the chat, with photo, price and link. It uses WooCommerce's public store API, so it needs no customer data. Set the Store address and Results per search, or press Connect on a WordPress site that runs the Sidekick Forge Connect plugin.

Product learning (Open product learning →) lets the sidekick study every product, photos included. It then keeps notes and tags so it can find products by how they look, for example "something blue and abstract for a living room". You review its notes and approve tags before they're used.

WooCommerce Store Insights

Gives read-only access to orders, catalogue, sales, best sellers and stock, so you can ask "what sold best last month?". It needs a WooCommerce REST key: Consumer key and Consumer secret. Create it in WordPress under WooCommerce → Settings → Advanced → REST API, with Read permission. Keep this ability Admin Only.

Elementor & Beaver Builder

Build and edit pages on your WordPress site by asking, for example "add a testimonials section under the hero". Changes go to drafts, and publishing asks you first.

• Elementor needs Elementor 4.3 or newer on WordPress 6.9 or newer.
• Beaver Builder needs the Sidekick Forge Connect plugin (0.22 or newer) and the free MCP Adapter plugin, on WordPress 6.9 or newer. You don't need Beaver Builder's own AI add-on.

Connect from the ability card with a WordPress application password, or switch them on from the Connect plugin's settings. Both are Admin Only. See WordPress.

Browser Operator Beta

Does things on websites for you in a private browser: look something up behind a login, fill in a form, check an order. You can watch it live in the chat and take over at any time.

• The browser runs on a computer you pair (Pair a computer), never on Sidekick Forge's servers. A paired computer only runs tasks for the person who paired it. For now this needs a Linux computer that supports virtualization.
• Saved sign-in profiles this sidekick may use: sign-ins stored encrypted on your paired computer. Only the ones you tick are used.
• Ask before: Risky steps — buying, sending, posting, deleting, saving (recommended), Every step that clicks or types, or Never — read-only lookups only.
• Only let it open these sites (optional): limit it to a list of websites.

Code Catalyst Beta

Sends coding jobs to your own development environments, either servers you add over SSH or folders on your computer in the desktop app. Each environment has a Permission tier: Browse — read only, Workdir — run + edit within the working directory or Full — unrestricted. Tick Dry-run (propose diffs, don't apply) to review its changes before they happen.

Nextcloud

Works with your own Nextcloud: it can create and edit documents, manage Deck boards, read and schedule calendar events and tasks, and send Talk messages. Press Connect Nextcloud, enter your server address and approve in the window that opens. Nextcloud then issues a dedicated app password, so your own password is never shared. Choose the Enabled Features and a Default Folder.

Archivist Beta

Files documents for you according to a set of rules you write: where documents live, how to name them and which folder each kind belongs in. It can organise documents where they already are, or copy or migrate them somewhere else. Start with Filing is on switched off to preview what it would do, and check the Filing audit before letting it run.

Built in: UserSense and DocumentSense

Two ambient abilities are part of every sidekick:

• UserSense reflects on finished conversations to understand each user better: their goals, working style and context. This is what fills in Lore. Press View Profiles on its card to see what it has learned.
• DocumentSense pulls key facts out of your documents so the sidekick can answer questions about them more accurately.

Other abilities

These abilities exist but are set up per workspace by our team. Email help@sidekickforge.com if you'd like one switched on: