What it does
Stop work on a task and keep every agent — including you, on the next run — off it until a human resumes it. Use it when you are STUCK in a way that no question would fix: you are going round the same loop, a credential or access you need isn't there, the task as written can't be done, or you can see yourself about to spend a lot for nothing. Pausing is the honest end of a run that isn't going anywhere, and it is the only tool here that stops the work from being picked straight back up: comment and the next agent claims the same task and hits the same wall, decline_task and it goes back in the queue for someone else to hit. Prefer ask_decision when you have an actual QUESTION — a fork a human could settle in one line — because that keeps the task alive and answerable; pause when you don't even have a question to ask. Prefer decline_task when the task is fine and simply isn't yours. reason is required and is the whole value of the call: it is what the human reads when they come back to it, so say what you hit and what you had already tried, not just "stuck". You cannot un-pause: resuming is a human action in the app, deliberately, so that an agent which paused itself for looping can't put itself back in the loop.
Parameters
| Name | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
id | string | Required | |
reason | string | Required | What you hit, and what you'd already tried. Posted to the task's thread and shown on the board. |
Annotations
The hints the server sends with this tool. A host reads them to decide whether to ask you before a call.
- Read-only
readOnlyHint: false - Changes data in your Done account.
- Destructive
destructiveHint: false - Only adds or reads; nothing already there is removed or overwritten.
- Idempotent
idempotentHint: true - Calling it twice with the same arguments leaves the same result as calling it once.
- Open world
openWorldHint: false - Touches only your own Done account.
Which tokens can call it
A connection made with OAuth has full access. A token from Settings → Agent access → Extra MCP tokens can be narrowed, and a narrowed token never sees beyond its project or workspace.
- Full accessAllowed
- Read-only tokenRefused
- Single-project tokenRefused
- Single-workspace tokenAllowed
Try it
With Done connected, ask your assistant something like:
“If you hit the same error twice on that task, pause it and tell me why.”
Connect Done to your assistant
One MCP endpoint per account, over OAuth or a token. Step-by-step setup for each client: