Lesson 1334 of 2116
Tool Discovery Strategies for Long-Lived Agents
How to give an agent access to 200+ tools without blowing the context window.
Lesson map
What this lesson covers
Learning path
The main moves in order
- 1The premise
- 2tool discovery
- 3retrieval over tools
- 4tool catalogs
Concept cluster
Terms to connect while reading
Section 1
The premise
Loading every tool into the prompt is wasteful — retrieve only the tools the current task needs.
What AI does well here
- Embed tool descriptions and retrieve top-k by query.
- Group tools into bundles selectable by task type.
- Cache the chosen toolset across multi-step tasks.
What AI cannot do
- Guarantee the right tool is in the top-k for novel queries.
- Replace a human-curated allowlist for high-risk tools.
Key terms in this lesson
End-of-lesson quiz
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Tutor
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