---
title: Plugins, MCP servers or Enterprise Search? | Build EmployeeWorks plugins with ToolSmith (Part 2)
date: 2026-10-27
abstract: EmployeeWorks assistants can use Enterprise Search, MCP servers and plugins as tools. The second video in the Build EmployeeWorks plugins with ToolSmith series explains how tools and the agentic loop let a language model act, then when to reach for each option: Enterprise Search for company knowledge, MCP servers for an open standard set of tools, and plugins for tasks that have to run the same way every time.
tags: ServiceNow, EmployeeWorks, ToolSmith, MCP, AI, Agentic AI, Developer Experience
author: Chris Reddington
canonical_url: https://chrisreddington.com/video/plugins-mcp-servers-or-enterprise-search/
---


This is the second video in the Build EmployeeWorks plugins with ToolSmith series on the ServiceNow Dev Program channel. The video covers the following topics:

- What a language model can do on its own: summarise a travel policy or compare options, but not look up or cancel a live booking
- How tools work: the model asks for a tool by name, the agent harness runs it and hands back the result, and that agentic loop is what makes an agent
- Enterprise Search for company knowledge, such as the travel cancellation policy
- MCP servers as an open standard for offering tools to agents, including asking for a team's open Linear issues and inspecting the Linear server's tools in Tool Studio
- Why you should review the tools an MCP server exposes before giving an agent access, since the model can call any of them, including ones that update or delete data
- Plugins for tasks that have to run the same way every time, like the travel plugin that finds bookings, lets the employee pick one and confirms before anything changes
- Checking business rules in plugin code (such as only allowing cancellations more than 48 hours before a trip) rather than relying on the model's instructions

The full written series is on the [ServiceNow Community](https://www.servicenow.com/community/sn-employeeworks-blog/build-employeeworks-plugins-with-toolsmith/ba-p/3613461).