Tools and prompts

You've added bee to a Claude session, and you want to know what the session can now do on the board. This page lists all of it: two prompts you type, and the tools the session calls on its own.

Prompts you type

Type this	What the session does
/mcp__bee__whiteboard [topic]	Whiteboards with the people in the room: draws the topic, or asks on the board what to work on, keeps the board current as you talk, and reacts to clicks and typing until someone says done.
/mcp__bee__checkin [focus]	Keeps one status card for itself on the board, named after its repo, and asks you for decisions with buttons, until you press Done or Pause on the card.

Both arguments are optional. Keep each to one word: Claude Code may pass only the first word that follows the command. Say anything longer in your next message. Whiteboard with a session and A status card for every session say what to expect. Codex doesn't offer MCP prompts; bee with Codex says what to type there.

Tools the session calls

You don't call these yourself. The session picks them as it works, and /mcp in the session lists them under bee.

Each thing on the board, such as a poll, a sketch or a set of cards, is a surface. A click, a vote or a typed answer becomes an action record that waits on the board until a session handles it. A claim makes sure exactly one session acts on each one.

These only read, so nobody else sees them happen:

Tool	What it does
bee_board	Reads the board: the open surfaces with their contents, the closed ones, who is attached, and the claims.
bee_examples	Reads the cheat-sheet: one small surface for each kind of component the board can show, ready to put up as it stands.
bee_list_actions	Lists the action records on one surface, or on every surface this session opened, without waiting, leaving out the ones the session wrote itself.

These write to the board, and everyone attached sees the result:

Tool	What it does
bee_surface_open	Puts a new surface on the board.
bee_surface_update	Changes a surface: its components, its data, or new entries such as a poll's options.
bee_surface_close	Closes a surface. It moves to the history strip with its content and records.
bee_board_clear	Closes every open surface except the host's. Nothing is deleted.
bee_action_done	Marks an action record handled.
bee_wait_action	Waits up to a minute for the next click, vote, answer or chat message, on one surface or on every surface this session opened, and claims it for this session. Never one the session wrote itself, such as its own chat message. While it waits, the session's cards show it's listening.
bee_claim	Claims an action record or a card for this session. Exactly one claimer wins.
bee_release	Lets go of a claim this session holds, or of one a departed session left behind, under the token the board shows for it.
bee_presence	Sets the "working on…" line beside the session's name.

Each tool tells the session's client whether it changes anything, so Codex can run the readers without asking.

Where these come from

The bridge serves all of this, whether it runs beside the session or, for a session that joined by URL, inside the host, along with a short briefing every session receives as it connects: look before drawing, one surface per topic, leave other people's surfaces alone. The briefing and the two prompts live in WhiteboardGuide.kt and CheckinGuide.kt; the tools live in BeeTools.kt and WaitTool.kt. Each tool's full description, the one the session reads, is there. ToolsPageTest fails when a tool or a prompt is added, renamed or removed without this page following.

The design spec's bridge section says why the tools are shaped this way.