# Vault and Agents



The Vault is not a setting you switch on. It is a set of documents an agent can
read.

## Who Reads What [#who-reads-what]

Two readers are documented.

| Reader                                                         | What is known                                                                                                                                                                |
| -------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| [SAM](/platform/sam/overview)                                  | Reads the Vault before it drafts anything, and reads whatever you name: *"draft this using `brand/voice.md`"*. Files answers back under `slack/` with **Save in Vault** |
| [Competitor agent](/platform/campaign-agents/competitor-agent) | Connected to the Vault as **Competitor Monitoring**. The app's line for it: it "uses your Vault to judge what actually matters when a rival moves"                           |

The Vault screen also shows **Content Analytics** as a live connection, and
Surface email, Surface forms, HubSpot, Gong and LinkedIn Ads as coming soon.

<Info>
  Which folders Surface's own agents reach for, and at what point in a task, is
  not documented. Do not build a folder on the assumption that a particular agent
  will find it. Name the path in the prompt instead, and check the output.
</Info>

## Telling Whether It Was Used [#telling-whether-it-was-used]

[SAM](/platform/vault/sam) usually names the documents it pulled from, in a line
under the draft. If you get no such line, test it:

<Steps>
  <Step title="Run the prompt once">
    Ask for the draft as you normally would.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Add the one document you think is missing">
    A single objection, a single voice rule, one customer number.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Run the identical prompt again">
    If the draft changed, the document reached it. If nothing changed, name the
    path in the prompt and run it a third time. SAM says so directly when it
    found no voice rules to follow.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## A Wrong Document Is Worse than a Missing One [#a-wrong-document-is-worse-than-a-missing-one]

Nothing checks a Vault document against your product. If a document asserts a
capability you do not ship, agents will draft that claim, confidently, until
someone edits the document.

<Warning>
  Treat Vault documents as publishable claims. Anything you would not put on a
  slide in front of a customer should not be in a document an agent drafts from.
</Warning>

## Vault over MCP [#vault-over-mcp]

The four Vault tools ship in the default MCP connection:

| Tool                   | Use                                                                                                            |
| ---------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `browse_vault`         | List or search documents. Takes `query`, `pathPrefix`, `cursor`, `limit`.                                      |
| `read_vault_documents` | Read up to 10 documents, and get the `revision` an edit will need. Takes `offset` and `maxChars` per document. |
| `create_vault`         | Build the first Vault from a public website URL.                                                               |
| `apply_vault_changes`  | Create, update, move or delete up to 20 documents atomically.                                                  |

For a coding agent: `browse_vault` with a `pathPrefix`, `read_vault_documents`
on the two or three that matter, then write.

[Vault and SAM →](/platform/vault/sam) · [MCP tool reference](/mcp-server/tools#vault)