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Claude Advanced Tool Use

anthropic.com

131–140 of 280 posts

Re: Claude Advanced Tool Use

#131

Okay so this is just the `apropos` and `whatis` command¥ to search through available man pages. Then `man` command to discover how the tools work. Followed by tool execution? Really. We should be treating Claude code more like a shell session. No need for MCPs

> Really. We should be treating Claude code more like a shell session. No need for MCPs

Claude Code has been iterating on this; Agent Skills are the new hotness: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/skills

Re: Claude Advanced Tool Use

#132
post #100

This is heading in the wrong direction. > The future of AI agents is one where models work seamlessly across hundreds or thousands of tools. Says who? I see it going the other way - less tools, better skills to apply those tools. To take it to an extreme, you could get by with ShellTool.

Using shell as an intermediary is the same kind of indirection as tool search and tool use from code, so I think you are largely agreeing with their substantive sentiment while disagreeing with their word choice.

Not exactly. Proliferation of tools built into agents for computer user is anti-thematic given that computer use is a key focus for model development.

Why build a tonne of tool-use infra when you could simplify instead?

Re: Claude Advanced Tool Use

#133
The MCP standard will and has to evolve to address this context issue. It’s a no brainer and this is a perfect example of the direction mcp is going / will go. There’s fundamentally nothing wrong, it’s just protocols updates that have to occur.

Re: Claude Advanced Tool Use

#134

I never really understood why you have to stuff all the tools in the context. Is there something wrong with having all your tools in, say, a markdown file, and having a subagent read it with a description of the problem at hand and returning just the tool needed at that moment? Is that what this tool search is?

That's exactly what Claude Skills do [0], and while this tool search appears to be distinct, I do think that they're on the way to integrating MCP and Skills.

[0] https://code.claude.com/docs/en/skills

Re: Claude Advanced Tool Use

#135

The Programmatic Tool Calling has been an obvious next step for a while. It is clear we are heading towards code as a language for LLMs so defining that language is very important. But I'm not convinced of tool search. Good context engineering leaves the tools you will need so adding a search if you are going to use all of them is just more overhead. What is needed is a more compact tool definition language like, I d…

I'm not sure that we need a new language so much as just primitives from AI gamedev, like behavior trees along with the core agentic loop.

Re: Claude Advanced Tool Use

#136

I never really understood why you have to stuff all the tools in the context. Is there something wrong with having all your tools in, say, a markdown file, and having a subagent read it with a description of the problem at hand and returning just the tool needed at that moment? Is that what this tool search is?

That’s exactly what it is in essence. The MCP protocol simply doesn’t have any mechanism specifications (yet) for not loading tools completely in the context. There’s nothing really strange about it. It’s just a protocol update issue.

Re: Claude Advanced Tool Use

#137
post #133

The MCP standard will and has to evolve to address this context issue. It’s a no brainer and this is a perfect example of the direction mcp is going / will go. There’s fundamentally nothing wrong, it’s just protocols updates that have to occur.

I'm struggling with this right now. 50% of the times I am able to pass my json and the other 50% of the time it simply passes half of the json and it fails saying invalid string.

Re: Claude Advanced Tool Use

#139
post #6

I cannot believe all these months and years people have been loading all of the tool JSON schemas upfront. This is such a waste of context window and something that was already solved three years ago.

What is the right pattern? Do you just send a list of tool names & descriptions, and just give the agent an "install" tool that adds a given tool to the schema on the next turn?

Re: Claude Advanced Tool Use

#140
post #77

I'm starting to notice a pattern with these AI assistants. Scenario: I realize that the recommended way to do something with the available tools is inefficient, so I implement it myself in a much more efficient way. Then, 2-3 months later, new tools come out to make all my work moot. I guess it's the price of living on the cutting edge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_lesson
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