Meet Root

Answer questions about recent news, current events, breaking developments, or fast-moving topics using Perplexity Sonar Pro with live web search. Use this when freshness matters or the question is about the outside world beyond Foundations. IMPORTANT: when the Foundations knowledge base tool is available, use this in parallel with search_knowledge_base and never as the only research source. Do not use this for Foundations policies, member data, or Slack discussion history when the structured internal tools are a better fit.

Search public Slack messages that Root has ingested from Foundations channels, and resolve exact public Slack message permalinks live when the user includes them. Use this when the user explicitly wants to know what members said in Slack, wants recent discussion history, wants examples or sentiment from public-channel conversations, wants help understanding a specific Slack link, or when knowledge-base results are too thin and Slack discussion would add supplemental context. Do not use this as the primary source of truth when search_knowledge_base or another structured tool can answer the question.

Search the Foundations knowledge base for information about membership, policies, events, sponsors, office space, community resources, and curated community recommendations. Use this as the default source for general questions before falling back to Slack-message search. Do NOT use this tool when the user is asking for ACCESS to a specific knowledge base page (e.g. they pasted a /kb/... URL or asked for a link to a specific page) — use get_knowledge_page_link for that.

Check RSVPs for calendar events. With an event_id or event_name, returns the full RSVP/attendee list for that event along with whether the current user is signed up. With no arguments, returns all upcoming events the current user has an RSVP record for. Use this when someone asks who is attending an event, whether they (or someone) are signed up, or what events they're registered for.

Get detailed information about a specific calendar event.

Get information about founder circles - either the user's current circle or available circles to join. Use this when users ask about founder-circle groups, private Slack channels, or whether there is a Slack channel for a founder segment, since founder circles map to private Slack channels.

Join a founder circle by name.

Leave the user's current founder circle.

List upcoming or future calendar events at Foundations. Supports natural-language queries over upcoming events, not historical or past-event searches.

Search previous calendar events that have already happened. Supports natural-language queries over historical events such as 'what events happened last month?' or follow-up searches by name/date range.

Submit a community event happening in Seattle that is NOT hosted at Foundations. Any member can submit without approval. Use when someone wants to share an event, meetup, or gathering they know about or are hosting outside of Foundations.

Cancel an existing follow-up. Use list_follow_ups first if the user does not provide a specific follow_up_id.

List the user's active, paused, processing, or failed follow-ups. Use when they ask what follow-ups they have scheduled.

Pause an active follow-up without deleting it. Use when the user wants Root to stop running it for now.

Resume a paused follow-up so Root starts running it again.

Update a follow-up's instruction, schedule, or both. Use when the user wants to edit an existing follow-up.

Add a new VC fund to the database without linking the user to it.

Connect the current user to a VC fund. Use relationship_type 'investor' when the fund invested in the user's company, or 'friendly' when they know someone at the fund. Auto-creates the fund if it doesn't exist.

List the current user's VC fund connections - which funds they've raised from or are connected to.

Find which community members have raised from or are connected to a specific VC fund.

Search community-recommended service providers (accountants, lawyers, HR, marketing, etc.) that Foundations members have reviewed. Use this whenever a user asks for recommendations, referrals, or 'who do you recommend for X'. Can search by keyword or filter by category.

Search the VC fund directory semantically. Use for broad discovery queries like 'early stage AI funds', 'who invests in climate tech', or 'seed stage funds in Seattle'. Returns ranked results with relevance explanations. For looking up connections to a specific known fund, use query_vc_connections instead.

Remove the user's connection to a VC fund.

Update a VC partner's email address.

Research and auto-generate or refresh the current user's member bio from their LinkedIn profile and known company context. Use ONLY when the user explicitly asks Root to write, regenerate, refresh, or auto-update their own bio.

Deactivate a previously saved user preference so Root stops applying it in future conversations. Use when the user says to forget, remove, undo, or stop using a remembered preference. If the exact preference is unclear, use list_user_preferences first.

Get the current user's company profile information including name, URL, and description.

Get the Foundations member profile of the person you are talking to — includes their bio, LinkedIn, and directory status (Founder in Residence, Alumni, or Member). This returns THEIR information, not yours.

List the explicit preferences and remembered instructions previously saved for the current user. Use when they ask what you remember, what preferences you have stored, or to review saved nicknames, aliases, formatting rules, or recurring instructions.

Save an explicit user preference, alias, nickname, formatting rule, or recurring workflow instruction for future conversations. Use when the user clearly asks you to remember something, says 'from now on', 'treat X as Y', 'call me', 'prefer', 'always respond', or otherwise gives a durable instruction for future interactions. Only save preferences the user explicitly states or clearly requests.

Search the Foundations company directory using AI. Use this when the user asks about specific companies, wants to find companies by industry, product, market, or status, wants to compare or count companies by attribute, or wants to know which company matches a natural-language description. Do not use this for the current user's own company profile when get_company_info or update_company is the better fit.

Search the Foundations member directory using AI. Loads all member profiles (names, bios, companies, roles, expertise, member types, directory status such as actual Founder in Residence vs Alumni vs Member, and VC connections) and uses an LLM to find the most relevant members for any query — including semantic/conceptual searches like 'who knows about SMBs' or 'fintech founders'. Use this whenever someone asks about finding people, who has experience with something, member lookups, counting members by attribute (e.g. 'how many members are FIRs'), or looking up a specific member's contact info (e.g. 'what's Matt's email?', 'how do I reach Sarah?'). Each match comes back with the member's email and LinkedIn so you can answer contact-info questions directly — sharing this info is expected in the community.

Update the current user's company profile. Provide only the fields to update.

Update the Foundations member profile of the person you are talking to. Use when they provide or share their bio text or a LinkedIn URL — including in reply to being asked for it. ONLY pass values that appear in the member's message. NEVER generate content yourself — if the member only sent a URL, only update that field.

Add an employee to the company membership plan.

Cancel the user's membership subscription.

Change the user's membership plan. Specify the target plan name and optional billing period.

Get the current user's membership plan details, billing info, and status.

Get available membership plan options and pricing.

View company membership seat information including current employees and available seats.

Remove an employee from the company membership plan by their email.

Generate a link for the user to update their payment method.

Cancel an existing office hours booking. Provide a booking_id for direct cancellation, or use mentor_name/date/time to find the booking. Set cancel_all to true to cancel all bookings.

Cancel an office-hours block that the email sender is hosting or has been explicitly authorized to manage as a copied delegate. Use this for requests like 'cancel my office hours on April 7' or 'please remove that hosted session'.

List upcoming hosted office-hours blocks the email sender is allowed to manage, whether they are the host or an authorized delegate copied on the calendar invite. Use this before cancelling or rescheduling when the specific hosted session is unclear.

List upcoming or future available office hours sessions. Also use this when a user asks to book or schedule a meeting at Foundations — meetings are booked through office hours. Use for booking availability only, not for historical or past-session questions. Do NOT use this when the user is offering times that they themselves could HOST as a mentor or advisor.

Reschedule an existing office hours booking to a new time slot. Requires the original booking ID and the new slot ID. If the user is keeping the same slot but wants a topic change that needs staff help, this tool logs that request instead of pretending it was handled.

Move an office-hours block that the email sender is hosting or has been explicitly authorized to manage as a copied delegate. Use this for email requests like 'move my office hours to April 8 at 1pm'.

Schedule an office-hours block that the email sender will HOST as a mentor or advisor. Use this for email requests like 'can I do Wednesday from 9 to 11' or 'I'd like to host office hours next week'. You can also include extra calendar-recipient emails when an assistant, manager, or alternate inbox should receive the block invite. Do NOT use this to book the sender into someone else's slot.

Search previous office hours sessions that have already happened. Supports historical lookups by mentor, date, time, or a natural-language query. Always include the user's original wording in query for broad, comparative, or follow-up questions like 'has Sam done office hours before?', 'what about Charles?', or 'who has done the most office hours?'.

View all current office hours bookings for the user.

Analyze what is happening in the Foundations physical space using live camera feeds. Use this when a user asks about events happening in the space, whether someone is at the front desk, how busy the space is, or any other question about the physical environment. This tool can confirm visible occupancy, activity, clothing, and approximate location, but it cannot reliably identify specific people, members, or company affiliation from images alone. Do NOT use it to decide whether a named person is present unless the user has already provided a clear visual description to match against; even then, describe it only as someone matching that description, not as confirmed identity. If identity matters for a 'who is here right now' question, combine it with door access and/or member tools instead of inferring identity from appearance. The camera images will be automatically shared with the user after analysis — do NOT try to embed images in your response.

Log a request that requires a human and/or a physical-world action, then notify admins. Use for merch or swag, pickups, shipping, access help that needs manual staff intervention, special accommodations, concierge help, admin data fixes (e.g. linking a company to a member profile), event coordination (e.g. a member wants to present or demo at an event, needs A/V setup, or has an agenda addition), or other offline/manual tasks the team must perform. Also use this when another tool fails because something needs admin-side setup or correction. Also use when a member tells you something the team needs to act on or know about and no other tool directly handles it — never just say 'noted' without actually recording the information. NEVER use for messaging, email sends, Slack DMs, drafting copy, surveys, reminders, bookings, or any other digital action Root can do directly through tools. When speaking to the user afterward, call it a request, not a fulfillment request.

Delete one of the current user's previously logged requests. Use when the user says they no longer need a request, wants it removed, or asks Root to delete or cancel a previously logged request. If the user does not clearly identify which request, use list_my_fulfillment_requests first.

Get live camera snapshot images from the Foundations physical space. Use this when a user asks to SEE the space, wants photos/images of specific rooms, or asks 'show me' what's happening. The images will be automatically uploaded and shared with the user — do NOT try to embed them in your text response. Just mention which cameras you're sharing.

List the current user's logged requests that need human follow-through and their statuses. Use when a user asks whether Root already recorded a manual request, asks for the status of a merch or physical-world request, or wants to review previous requests Root logged for admins. When speaking to the user, call them requests, not fulfillment requests.

Submit a response to a pending survey question.