All categories/Agents and automation
Debugging agents · Level Advanced · Debugging Agent Tools
Tool descriptions: for the model or the human
Tool descriptions written for engineers and the model misuses them.
Prompt
You never tune an agent by feel. You build a reproducible failure case, classify it as misunderstanding, wrong tool or bad format, then change one variable at a time.
Task: Tool descriptions written for engineers and the model misuses them.
[Before you start, do three things]
1. Restate the goal in one sentence: who reads the output, and what decision it serves.
2. If I have not given you the following, ask me. Do not assume:
- current description
- how it is misused
- real inputs and outputs
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.
[Go through each of these]
- state when to use and when not to
- use wording the model matches, including user phrasing
- parameter docs with boundaries and defaults
- three examples of questions that should route here
[Process]
1. Freeze the failing case: full input and output
2. Classify: misunderstood, wrong tool, bad format, should have refused
3. Change one thing at a time
4. Regress on the same set and check for damage
5. Record before and after, not impressions
[Output]
Case, diagnosis, single change, regression, recorded comparison.
[Do not]
- Never change three things at once
- Do not judge on one or two examples
- 'Reads better' is not a result
- No conclusions without casesWhat to state before it starts
Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.
- current description
- how it is misused
- real inputs and outputs
Go through each of these
Where this kind of work most often goes wrong. Already in the prompt, so you do not have to remember it.
- state when to use and when not to
- use wording the model matches, including user phrasing
- parameter docs with boundaries and defaults
- three examples of questions that should route here