Search Companies

Overview

Look up companies in the Carta CRM. A request about one named company renders that company's card; a request for a set renders a table. Route on that distinction first — it decides every call below.

Step 1 — Determine intent: one company, or a set?

• Detail — the user named one company and wants the record: "full details on Preqin", "tell me about Acme", "more on Stripe", "who is Preqin". → Step 2.
• List — the user wants a set, or filtered or plural results: "companies I'm tracking", "companies in fintech", "what companies do we have". → Step 3.
• By domain — the user gave a website domain (e.g. "stripe.com") → Step 2, skipping the resolve; fetch_company_by_domain already identifies one record.

A named single company is a detail request even when the user says "search" or "find". If it's genuinely unclear, treat it as a list and ask what they want to narrow to.

Step 2 — Detail: resolve the name, then render the card

Resolve through crm_call_tool, never crm_view_tool. This step is for you, not the user: a view call collapses every array in the response to a count, so the rows — and the id you need — never reach you, and the user gets a list they did not ask for.

crm_call_tool({
  "name": "crm:search_companies",
  "arguments": { query: "<company name>", limit: 10 }
})

Then branch on how many candidates came back:

• Exactly one match → render its card and stop:

  crm_view_tool({ "name": "crm:fetch_company_by_id", "arguments": { id: "<id>" } })
  

• Several matches → do NOT guess. Render the candidates as a view and ask which one:

  crm_view_tool({
    "name": "crm:search_companies",
    "arguments": { query: "<company name>", limit: 10 }
  })
  

  Then ask: "Several companies match — which one did you mean?" When they pick, call fetch_company_by_id for it. Opening the top hit unasked shows the wrong record with full confidence.
• No match → say so; do not render an empty view.

By domain, there is nothing to resolve — one call, one card:

crm_view_tool({ "name": "crm:fetch_company_by_domain", "arguments": { domain: "<domain>" } })

Render at most one card per request. If the user named several companies, ask which to open rather than stacking views.

Step 3 — List: search and render the table

When the user's filters map to specific fields, discover the valid field_ids first. This is a schema lookup, so it goes through crm_call_tool:

crm_call_tool({ "name": "crm:get_company_fields", "arguments": {} })

Map the user's intent to the most specific matching fields and pass them as filters ({ field_id, operator, value }). Fall back to the free-text query only when no field matches. Never guess a field_id — they vary per organisation.

crm_view_tool({
  "name": "crm:search_companies",
  "arguments": {
    query: "<search term>",
    limit: 20
  }
})

Increase limit if the user asks to see more results. Use offset to paginate.

If the view is unavailable

CRM views are enabled per organisation, and single-record views behind a second flag on top of that. So any crm_view_tool call above may answer with:

CRM tool 'search_companies' has no view — call it with crm_call_tool instead.

That is a normal response, not a failure — this organisation does not have that view enabled. Retry that one call verbatim through crm_call_tool and present the result as text per Step 4. Do not retry crm_view_tool, and do not report the message to the user.

A detail request whose card has no view still resolves the same way: keep the crm_call_tool resolve from Step 2 and present the chosen record as text.

Step 4 — Present results

When a card rendered, the user sees the whole record. Do not restate its fields. Answer what they asked, or acknowledge in one line.

When a table rendered, the user already sees every row. Do NOT re-list, re-format, or summarise them as text — that duplicates the table. Answer the question they actually asked, or acknowledge in one line (e.g. "Found 14 companies — the ID is in the first column, for /update-company.").

When you fell back to crm_call_tool, display all non-empty fields in a readable summary and show the ID prominently — the user will need it to run /update-company.

If no companies are found:

"No companies found matching your search. Try a different name, keyword, or domain."