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

With no annotations, the description carries the full behavioral burden. It does disclose corpus coverage (every filing and exhibit since 2001), which is useful, but says nothing about result limits, pagination, ranking, rate limits, or auth requirements for what is likely a high-volume query endpoint.

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?

Two short sentences, zero filler, with the corpus scope front-loaded before the syntax tip. Appropriately sized for a simple search tool.

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?

For a 4-parameter search tool with no annotations and no output schema, the description omits return-shape and pagination behavior and never mentions the date-range or form-type filtering capabilities. An agent gets the gist but not enough to call it confidently in edge cases.

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 description coverage is 100%, so all four parameters (query, startDate, endDate, formTypes) are already documented in the schema. The description's quote-syntax remark duplicates the schema's own 'words or "exact phrase"' wording, adding no meaning beyond it; baseline 3 applies.

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 (search) and resource (full text of every filing and exhibit) plus a temporal scope (since 2001). It is clear what the tool does, though it never names the obvious sibling search_filings to explain how full-text search differs from a metadata search.

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?

Provides a query-syntax hint ("Use quotes for exact phrases") but no when-to-use guidance, no exclusions, and no routing against siblings like search_filings or extract_section. The agent must infer when full-text search is preferable to structured filing search.

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