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Writing effective tools for agents (2025)

Reference

Citation: Anthropic. "Writing effective tools for agents" (11 Sep 2025). Type: guidance. Link: anthropic.com/engineering/writing-tools-for-agents.

What it is

Engineering guidance on how to design tools for agents. It argues for a small set of tools built around high-impact workflows rather than a tool per endpoint.

Role in the record

  • Grounds BP06: tools that merely wrap existing endpoints perform worse than a few tools built for high-impact workflows.

Atom-level for/against detail and quotes are in the provenance data (assets/provenance.yml), keyed by practice atom.

Discussion