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Claude Advanced Tool Use

anthropic.com

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Re: Claude Advanced Tool Use

#71

Post by refibrillator »

_pdp_ wrote: post #24

Our agentic builder has a single tool. It is called graphql. The agent writes a query and executes it. If the agent does not know how to do particular type of query then it can use graphql introspection. The agent only receives the minimal amount of data as per the graphql query saving valuable tokens. It works better! Not only we don't need to load 50+ tools (our entire SDK) but it also solves the N+1 problem when u…

> It works better!

> I strongly believe it is one of the best technologies for AI agents

Do you have any quantitative evidence to support this?

Sincere question. I feel it would add some much needed credibility in a space where many folks are abusing the hype wave and low key shilling their products with vibes instead of rigor.

Re: Claude Advanced Tool Use

#72

Post by BenderV »

It feels crazy to me that we are building "tool search" instead of building real tool with interface, state and available actions. Think how would you define a Calculator, a Browser, a Car...?

I think, notably, one of the errors has been to name functions calls "tools"...

Re: Claude Advanced Tool Use

#73

Post by steveklabnik »

refibrillator wrote: post #71
_pdp_ wrote: post #24

Our agentic builder has a single tool. It is called graphql. The agent writes a query and executes it. If the agent does not know how to do particular type of query then it can use graphql introspection. The agent only receives the minimal amount of data as per the graphql query saving valuable tokens. It works better! Not only we don't need to load 50+ tools (our entire SDK) but it also solves the N+1 problem when u…

> It works better! > I strongly believe it is one of the best technologies for AI agents Do you have any quantitative evidence to support this? Sincere question. I feel it would add some much needed credibility in a space where many folks are abusing the hype wave and low key shilling their products with vibes instead of rigor.

I have thought about this for all of thirty seconds, but it wouldn't shock me if this was the case. The intuition here is about types, and the ability to introspect them. Agents really love automated guardrails. It makes sense to me that this would work better than RESTish stuff, even with OpenAPI.

Re: Claude Advanced Tool Use

#74

Post by fny »

jmward01 wrote: post #28

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…

Why exactly do we need a new language? The agents I write get access to a subset of the Python SDK (i.e. non-destructive), packages, and custom functions. All this ceremony around tools and pseudo-RPC seems pointless given LLMs are extremely capable of assembling code by themselves.

Re: Claude Advanced Tool Use

#75

Post by eli »

johnfn wrote: post #70
kaoD wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, we have that too! But we call it HTTP endpoints.

Really? Hmm... where in the HTTP spec does it allow for returning an arbitrary subset of any specific request, rather than the whole thing? And where does it ensure all the results are keyed by id so that you can actually build and update a sensible cache around all of it rather than the mess that totally free-form HTTP responses lead to? Oh weird HTTP doesn't have any of that stuff? Maybe we should make a new spec,…

An HTTP Range request asks the server to send parts of a resource back to a client. Range requests are useful for various clients, including media players that support random access, data tools that require only part of a large file, and download managers that let users pause and resume a download.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Guides/Ran...

Re: Claude Advanced Tool Use

#77

Post by jawns »

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.

Re: Claude Advanced Tool Use

#79

Post by ramnivasl »

_pdp_ wrote: post #24

Our agentic builder has a single tool. It is called graphql. The agent writes a query and executes it. If the agent does not know how to do particular type of query then it can use graphql introspection. The agent only receives the minimal amount of data as per the graphql query saving valuable tokens. It works better! Not only we don't need to load 50+ tools (our entire SDK) but it also solves the N+1 problem when u…

That is also the approach we took with Exograph (https://exograph.dev). Here is our reasoning (https://exograph.dev/blog/exograph-now-supports-mcp#comparin...). We found that LLMs do a very good job of crafting GraphQL queries for the given schema. While they do make mistakes, returning good descriptive error messages make is easy for them fix queries.

Re: Claude Advanced Tool Use

#80

Post by losvedir »

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?
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