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Living Capabilities: connectors, actions, and field mapping

Version 1.0 · Last updated 2026-08-10

One of the three senses. What the agent can do: agentic procedures that work in your CRM, billing, and product systems on the customer's behalf.

Living Knowledge tells the agent what your business knows. Living Memory tells it who the customer is. Living Capabilities lets it get things done in your other systems: check an order, change a plan, file a request, book a meeting. Every action runs through a connector, with permissions you set and an audit trail you can read.

Key concepts

Standard connectors

Pre-built connectors for common systems. CRMs (Salesforce, Hubspot). Helpdesks (Zendesk, Freshdesk, Jira Service Management, Zoho Desk, Xurrent). Knowledge bases (Confluence, Google Drive, BookStack, Zenya, ClickHelp, Azure DevOps Wiki, WordPress). Live chat (Zendesk Sunshine Conversations, Freshchat). Data lakes (Visma Data Lake). Configure with OAuth and field selection.

MCP servers

Connect your own MCP server to expose internal tools, custom APIs, or proprietary data sources to the agent through a standard protocol. The agent reads and acts through MCP the same way it does through any other connector, with the same audit trail.

Custom connectors

Build your own connector when a system is not on the standard list and MCP is not the right fit. Uses the Unless connector framework. Your developers, your account manager, or Unless Studio can scaffold one.

Actions

Each connector can also expose actions: update a profile, change a subscription, create a ticket, trigger a renewal. You set the permission per action: the agent may run it alone, it needs a human to approve, or it is off limits. No irreversible action runs without a human approving the boundary first.

Field mapping

Each connector exposes data to the agent through field mappings. You decide which fields the agent sees. Sensitive fields can be tokenized through the Privacy Vault.

Refresh behavior

Connectors are read live at interaction time, not pre-synced. There is no cached copy of your CRM inside Unless. The agent queries the source when it needs the data.

Failure handling

If a connector is slow or unavailable, the agent degrades gracefully. It still answers; it just cannot take the actions that connector would have made possible.

What you can do here

Connect a new standard connector
Configure field mapping for an existing connector
Set the permission for each action a connector exposes
Build a custom connector (with developer or account manager help)
Tokenize sensitive fields through the Privacy Vault
Inspect the live data a connector exposes
Configure failure behavior per connector

When to use it

Your system is not on the standard connector list
You need the agent to see a field that is not in the default mapping
You want the agent to do something in a system, not just read from it
An existing connector is exposing too much (privacy review flagged it)
You are setting up a new Moment that needs new data

How it works

When the agent needs data or needs to act, it calls the connector. The connector reads from your system using your credentials, returns the requested fields, and the agent uses them in the conversation. PII passes through the Privacy Vault before it reaches any third-party generative model.

Common questions

How do I connect a new system?

Open "Workspace > Connectors". Pick the system from the list and select "Configure". Authenticate. Pick the data scope. Map the fields you want exposed and choose which actions the agent may take.

How do I build a custom connector?

Talk to your account manager. The connector framework can be scaffolded by the Unless team or by your developers using the documented API.

How do I tokenize a sensitive field?

In the field mapping, mark the field as sensitive. The Privacy Vault tokenizes it. The agent sees a token, not the raw value, except when answering directly to the data subject.

Why is a connector returning no data?

Three common causes. The user used to authenticate lost permissions. The field mapping points at a field that no longer exists. Or the source system is unreachable.

How do I see what a connector exposes?

Open the connector and click "Inspect". The view shows sample data the agent will see during a conversation.

How do I limit what a connector exposes?

Edit the field mapping. Only fields on the mapping list are exposed to the agent. Everything else stays in your source system.