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

Annotations already establish read-only, idempotent, closed-world safety, so the description's job is to add provenance — and it does: acts come from the implements map, evidence from the last conformance run, and results are 'derived, never asserted'. The note that refusals are included in the returned steps is a genuinely useful disclosure an agent could not get from the annotations.

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?

The load-bearing content is front-loaded in the first sentence, but the closing flourish "refusals are half the curriculum" and the repeated 'teach' framing are editorial padding rather than operational information. Trimming would not lose anything an agent needs in order to call the 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?

With no output schema and only one optional parameter, the description carries most of the burden, and it does describe the shape of what comes back (acts, scenarios with steps showing doctrine and arguments, invariants with exercising evidence). What is missing is any hint of size, pagination, or how an unknown area is handled.

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% — the single 'area' parameter is already documented as a spec area defaulting to o2c. The description never mentions the parameter, so it adds nothing beyond the schema; 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?

The first sentence names a specific verb-and-resource pair — implementation status against an area spec — and enumerates the three things returned (acts, scenarios with evidence, invariants). It is well short of the top mark because it never distinguishes itself from adjacent introspection siblings like core_setup_status or core_schema; an agent must infer that 'spec' means something different from 'setup'.

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 answer to 'how far along is the spec, and how do you know'" and "Use it to teach" give a loose situational frame, but neither states a precondition, an exclusion, nor an alternative tool to pick instead. Usage is implied by the framing rather than instructed.

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