How it works

Layers

From top to bottom:

The server must run in the same Windows environment as EA, because EA's automation interface does not cross machine boundaries here.

The four capabilities

The layers above are the path for the server. The server is one of four capabilities the assistant works with, and the skills use whichever of them your client provides.

Which capabilities you have depends on the client you work in. The matrix by client, what each capability enables, what happens without it and how to check your own session are in Capabilities and surfaces.

How a request flows

1. You You ask in plain language: "Create a Business Application element named Core Banking in the Applications package."
2. AI The client picks a skill if one matches, reads its guidance, and decides which operations to call and in what order.
3. AI The client calls a tool. Every operation goes through one of the six grouped tools, which are each named for an area of work (ea_model for model content, ea_diagram for diagrams, and so on). The call names the operation and carries its arguments.
4. AI Power Tools The server checks the call before touching EA. The operation name must be well formed and known. Read-only mode must not block it. Every argument must be one the operation accepts, and every required argument must be present. A call that fails a check returns a structured error the assistant can read and correct.
5. AI Power Tools The server calls EA. It attaches to the running EA instance on first use and reuses the connection. If EA is not running, or no model is open, it says so and names the remedy. The server itself does not start EA. The assistant can: where computer use is available it starts EA and opens the model through EA's window, after asking you, and retries. Where it is not, it asks you to do it.
6. AI Power Tools EA performs the work against the open repository. Some operations read or write the repository's database directly through EA. The reporting operations that build SQL views connect to the database themselves: to SQL Server with the Windows account that runs the server, or to a SQL database in Microsoft Fabric with a Microsoft Entra sign-in that you complete.
7. AI Power Tools The server returns a result, marked as succeeded or failed with an error code, and for diagram operations often an inline image. Results are kept small by default.
8. (AI + AI Power Tools checks) The assistant verifies and reports. Skills tell it to re-read or re-render rather than trust a success message, because EA can accept a write and not apply it.

This is the path of a server operation. Work done with the other capabilities takes a different path: the assistant operates an application's window (computer use), runs a code engine (local code execution) or drives a web page (browser control), and then checks the result as each skill directs.

Where each deliverable lives