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The agent has 50 tools available. The model keeps picking the wrong one. How do you fix this?

Tool Design & MCP

Tool SelectionTool UseMCPOptimization

Asked at Anthropic · Glean · Sierra

How to Answer

"Tool selection degrades above ~15 tools per agent. Solutions:

  • (1)Tool routing — a fast classifier (Flash) categorizes the query first, then only relevant tools (5-8) are attached for that category.
  • (2)Tool groups — separate MCP servers by domain (billing tools, support tools, analytics tools). Attach only the relevant server per task.
  • (3)Better descriptions — include 'when NOT to use this tool' in the description. Be explicit: 'Use get_account for account metadata. Do NOT use this for billing data — use get_billing instead.'
  • (4)Few-shot examples — in the system prompt, show 2-3 examples of correct tool selection for common query types."

The deep dive — diagrams, tradeoff tables, and the follow-up trap

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