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n. / AI agents

Tool call

Definition

A tool call is an action an AI agent takes outside the language model itself, such as a search, database query, browser action, or API request, recorded with its arguments, result, latency, and failure state.

In more detail

Tool calls are attached to the reasoning span that selected them, which makes it possible to tell whether a bad outcome came from the agent choosing the wrong tool or from the tool itself failing.

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