Hello,
Let’s break the question into smaller questions,
Q1. Could we use the same variant names for applications and tools ?
Yes, absolutely,
In your example, Houdini variant name will be houdini/20-0 and the tool variant name will be hfs20.0/20-0.
These names will be generated from your settings by AYON Server.
Q2. How to make tools available for my project
This is done through the project editor.
Further insights can be found in Ayon Env Vars and Tools Configuration Explained
Q3. How to make applications available for my project
Although, the question was not asked, but I think it’s worth mentioning it.
This question should be covered in Applications disappeared from Launcher
For information there’s a WIP update for setting tools and applications. and, I’m going to update my comment here when it’s available.