> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.dovetail.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Web search and external tools > Let Chat reach beyond your workspace: search the public web for market context, and connect external MCP servers to your conversations. ## Web search Customer signals don’t exist in isolation. Sometimes you need external context alongside your internal data — what competitors are shipping, how the market is shifting, or which trends explain a pattern you’re seeing. Web search lets you pull in external sources within a single Chat conversation, without leaving Dovetail. Ask Chat to look up a competitor’s latest product announcement, find industry benchmarks, or surface recent coverage tied to a trend in your data. How teams use this: * **Competitor context** — compare what your customers are saying with what competitors are shipping, in one place. * **External validation** — support emerging themes with third-party sources and published benchmarks. * **Market signals** — layer in industry or macro trends to strengthen your interpretation of internal data. Video highlights playing inline in a Chat conversation *** ## External MCP in chat Sometimes the answer — or the action — isn’t in Dovetail. It’s in Slack, Linear, or Salesforce. Chat can connect to the tools your team already uses, so you can pull in outside context or take action, all without leaving the conversation. Turn a customer complaint straight into a Linear issue. Ask Chat to check a Slack thread for context. Update a Salesforce record based on what you just learned from a call. **Connect a tool** Open the tools menu next to the message box in Chat. From there: * **Connect** any of the built-in tools — Linear, Notion, Hex, Canva, Gmail, Slack, or Salesforce — with a one-click sign-in. * **Add custom MCP** if the tool you want isn’t in the list. Paste in the server URL and give it a name, and it shows up alongside the others. Once connected, toggle a tool on or off for any given conversation from the same menu. | **Tool** | **What the MCP can do** | **Source** | | :------------- | :----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | :----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Linear** | Search/retrieve issues, projects, teams, comments, and create issues,
comments, and initiatives, update issue status, projects, and milestones | [linear.app/docs/mcp](https://linear.app/docs/mcp) | | **Notion** | Search workspace content and read pages/databases and create or edit pages
and content blocks, update database entries, add comments | [developers.notion.com/guides/mcp](https://developers.notion.com/guides/mcp/overview) | | **Hex** | Find existing Hex projects and ask natural-language questions about your data in
a new or ongoing analysis thread. It doesn’t create or edit Hex projects/notebooks directly. | [learn.hex.tech/docs/api-integrations/mcp-server](https://learn.hex.tech/docs/api-integrations/mcp-server) | | **Canva** | Search and reference existing designs, brand templates, and comments and
generate new designs from a prompt, edit and resize designs, upload assets,
export files | [canva.dev/docs/mcp](https://www.canva.dev/docs/mcp/) | | **Gmail** | Read messages, threads, and labels and create, manage, and send email drafts. | [Gmail API scopes](https://developers.google.com/workspace/gmail/api/auth/scopes) *(see caveat above)* | | **Slack** | Search messages, channels, and people, and read conversation history
across public/private channels and DMs and send messages in any of those
conversations | [docs.slack.dev/ai/slack-mcp-server](https://docs.slack.dev/ai/slack-mcp-server/) | | **Salesforce** | Depends entirely on what your Salesforce admin activates: ranges from
read-only record search/query up to full create, update, and delete on
any object (leads, cases, opportunities, accounts, custom objects)
your account has access to | [developer.salesforce.com/.../servers-reference](https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/platform/hosted-mcp-servers/guide/servers-reference.html) | *** ## FAQs When web search is enabled, Chat uses Google’s search and grounding technology to find and summarize relevant information from the web. Here’s what that means in practice: * Google’s systems may review up to 20 web pages per search request. * Chat does not read or store raw webpage HTML directly. * Instead, Chat receives a short AI-generated summary of relevant content, along with source titles and links for citations. * Each web search response is limited to a concise summary (approximately 2,000 characters). * A single response may involve multiple web searches if additional context is needed. Web retrieval and processing are handled by the underlying search provider, and these limits may change over time.