Does the description disclose side effects, auth requirements, rate limits, or destructive behavior?

Goes well past the annotations by disclosing hold duration and its default, renewal on re-take, expiration behavior when you report nothing, a per-episode planning rate limit, and severity-based planning caps. 'It changes nothing in any system' plus the key/permission requirement ('a key that may act, with approval or autonomously') fill in the auth and side-effect profile the annotations only gesture at.

Agents need to know what a tool does to the world before calling it. Descriptions should go beyond structured annotations to explain consequences.

Is the description appropriately sized, front-loaded, and free of redundancy?

Purpose and state transition are front-loaded, and every clause carries operational information. It is dense and semicolon-chained, though, so the refusal list and planning rules are harder to scan than they need to be.

Shorter descriptions cost fewer tokens and are easier for agents to parse. Every sentence should earn its place.

Given the tool's complexity, does the description cover enough for an agent to succeed on first attempt?

With no output schema, the description still covers the full lifecycle an agent needs: how to acquire, how long it holds, how it expires, how to release, how to complete, and what blocks acquisition. Nothing required to call it correctly is missing.

Complex tools with many parameters or behaviors need more documentation. Simple tools need less. This dimension scales expectations accordingly.

Does the description clarify parameter syntax, constraints, interactions, or defaults beyond what the schema provides?

Schema coverage is already 100%, so the schema baseline is 3, but the description adds rationale the schema lacks: signal_version is an optimistic-concurrency guard ('you take the signal you read, never one a scan has rewritten since') and hours is mutually exclusive with plan, with the renewal semantics behind repeat calls. That is meaningful meaning beyond field-level text.

Input schemas describe structure but not intent. Descriptions should explain non-obvious parameter relationships and valid value ranges.

Does the description clearly state what the tool does and how it differs from similar tools?

States a specific verb and resource ('take' a 'signal') and the exact state transition it causes (open -> in_progress, held by your key). It is immediately distinguishable from list_signals (read) and record_action (finish) named in the same text.

Agents choose between tools based on descriptions. A clear purpose with a specific verb and resource helps agents select the right tool.

Does the description explain when to use this tool, when not to, or what alternatives exist?

Explicitly routes the agent: use it to claim work now, use plan: true to pick it up for later, use record_action to finish, and record outcome needs_human to release. It enumerates the exact refusal conditions (held by another, planned by someone else and not past date, waiting on a person, done) so the agent can pre-check instead of guessing.

Agents often have multiple tools that could apply. Explicit usage guidance like "use X instead of Y when Z" prevents misuse.