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

Annotations already declare readOnly, idempotent, and non-destructive, so safety is covered. The description adds genuinely non-obvious behavior beyond that: results are auth-gated by scope poppy:read, and offers from Safe Rate Mortgage are withheld until the affiliated business disclosure is accepted on saferate.com — an agent who does not know this would misreport missing offers as an error.

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?

Three sentences, front-loaded with the precondition before the payload, then the disclosure caveat. Every sentence carries a distinct fact, though the disclosure sentence is dense enough that a reader may need to re-read it before acting.

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 parameters and no output schema, the description carries the full burden of describing returns, and it does so by naming the offer fields (rate, APR, points, product). Combined with the auth precondition and the partial-results rule, an agent has everything needed to call it and interpret a thin response correctly.

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?

The tool takes zero parameters, so there is no parameter semantics to explain and the baseline is 4. The description correctly avoids inventing filtering or pagination inputs that the schema does not contain.

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: list quote requests the shopper sent to lenders plus the returned offers (rate, APR, points, product). The possessive 'my' scope separates it from market-level siblings like get_market_context, but it never names get_quote_estimate or track_quote_estimate, so an agent must infer the estimate-vs-actual-quote boundary itself.

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?

The sign-in prerequisite (scope poppy:read) tells the agent when the call will succeed, and 'the quote requests the shopper sent' implies the authenticated-shopper context. However, there is no explicit when-to-use versus get_quote_estimate, track_quote_estimate, or get_my_application, which is the most likely sibling confusion for this tool.

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