NewDesk team12 min read
The desk as a tool server
NewDesk speaks MCP, the Model Context Protocol, so the assistant your team already uses, Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any other MCP client, can read the queue and act on it as you. One entry in the client’s configuration, an endpoint and a bearer token made under Integrations, and the desk is a set of tools that assistant can call.
The interesting decisions were not in the transport. They were in what to expose.
Fifteen, not everything
The desk exposes fifteen tools: desk_overview, list_tickets, search_tickets, get_ticket, reply_to_ticket, add_note, update_ticket, create_ticket, search_customers, customer_billing, refund_invoice, cancel_subscription, list_team, knowledge_gaps, ask_assistant. Every one is a verb a teammate would say out loud.
Anything that did not survive that test was cut. A tool that changes a setting, deletes a conversation or edits a teammate is not something an assistant should reach for in the middle of answering a customer, so it is not there.
Why the names are boring
A model chooses a tool by its name and description before it reads a schema. A tool called do_the_thing, or handle_request, invites the model to route everything through it and guess the rest. reply_to_ticket and add_note look similar to a person and are worlds apart to a customer, so both names say exactly which one they are, and the descriptions say when the other is the right choice.
Inputs are typed and narrow. A ticket is an id, a customer is an email, a reason is a short string. When a model cannot obtain an input from the conversation it tends to invent one, so no tool asks for something the conversation cannot supply.
The two that ask first
refund_invoice and cancel_subscription move money or end a service. Both are confirmed with the person asking before they run, and both respect the limits the desk’s owner set. The assistant can propose a refund; it cannot slip one through.
Every run, confirmed or refused, is written on the ticket, so the team can read afterwards what was asked, what was done and by whom.
What it feels like
"What is waiting in the queue?" "Answer #1042 and mark it solved." "Refund Jordan’s last invoice." The assistant reads, replies and acts, and the desk records it as you. The fifteen tools are listed on the MCP page with what each one takes and returns.