Writing effective tools for AI agents
by Anthropic
How to design, evaluate and improve the tools an agent calls.
Anthropic discusses shaping tool interfaces and evaluating how agents use them. The emphasis is on testing whether a tool helps accomplish the task rather than merely exposing an API.
- Level
- Advanced
- Models
- any
- Category
- Agents and harnesses
- Tags
- tools
- Source date
- 2025-09-11
- Added
- 2026-10-18
- Last verified
- 2026-10-18
- Status
- ok
- Prerequisites
- Requires implementation experience or critical reading of technical methods and system trade-offs.
- Subcategory
- tool use and mcp
- Region
- West
- Original language
- en
- Access
- free
- Resource reuse
- closed: No general open-reuse grant established from the inspected page. Closed is the conservative index bucket, not a legal finding; the resource is publicly readable. Facet definitions
Summary in our own words. Rights remain with the original creator. Credit and correction policy.