Bargo Congress Trades

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

With no annotations and no output schema, the description carries the full burden and does disclose the return payload shape, including the exact performance metrics. It says nothing about ordering, truncation, or pagination behavior despite a limit parameter capped at 500, and no auth or rate-limit context is given.

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 sentences, front-loaded with what is returned, followed by the one operational instruction the caller needs. No filler and no restatement of the tool name.

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 two-parameter read tool with no output schema and no annotations, the description covers output content and the key input's provenance. The remaining gap is the unexplained limit/truncation behavior, which matters for members with large trade histories.

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 0%, so the description must compensate. It does well for member_slug, adding provenance (returned by get_congress_trades) and a format example ('nancy-pelosi'), but the limit parameter is never mentioned, leaving the agent to guess what it bounds and what happens at the 500 cap.

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?

Names a specific verb and resource: all disclosed trades for a single member of Congress, plus an enumerated performance summary (trade count, buys/sells, average per-share return). The single-member scope implicitly separates it from get_congress_trades and get_congress_stats, though it never states the contrast explicitly.

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?

Gives a concrete workflow prerequisite: 'Pass the member_slug returned by get_congress_trades', which routes the agent to the sibling first. It stops short of saying when to prefer get_congress_stats or what to do if the slug is unknown.

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

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

With no annotations, the description carries the full burden. It does disclose a meaningful behavioral constraint — all figures are scoped to the last 90 days — but says nothing about whether the window is configurable, whether results are cached, or what the data source/freshness guarantees are.

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?

A single dense sentence with the resource named first and the returned metrics enumerated after — well front-loaded. The colon-separated metric list is a bit packed but every item is informative rather than filler.

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 no parameters, the description must convey what comes back, and it does by listing each aggregate. The main remaining gap is whether the 90-day window is fixed or adjustable and what the response shape looks like, but an agent can call this correctly with what is given.

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 nothing for the description to disambiguate; the baseline of 4 applies. Nothing in the description conflicts with the empty input schema.

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 verb 'Aggregate' is specific, and the description enumerates the exact statistics returned (trade/member/ticker totals, buy vs sell counts, latest dates, most-traded tickers). This makes it clearly distinguishable from get_congress_trades and get_congress_member in practice, though it never names those siblings explicitly.

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?

Usage is implied rather than stated: an agent can infer this is the summary/rollup endpoint versus the raw-listing siblings, but the description gives no explicit 'use this when you want an overview, use get_congress_trades for individual records' guidance.

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

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

With no annotations, the description carries the burden and does well: it discloses the source, the default sort order, and a meaningful latency caveat (PTRs disclosed up to ~45 days after the trade, so "recent weeks" not real-time). It does not mention result caps/pagination limits, which is the main remaining behavioral gap.

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?

Dense and front-loaded: identity/source first, returned fields second, filtering and ordering third, then the caveat last. No filler sentences; the caveat is explicitly signposted with "CAVEAT".

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?

No output schema exists, and the description compensates by enumerating the row fields (member, chamber, ticker, company, type, dollar range, dates, per-trade performance). The only omission is the limit/pagination parameter, which leaves an agent unaware of how to size result sets.

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 0%, so the description must compensate, and it does for four of the five params: ticker, member (substring semantics added), chamber, and type (purchase/sale/exchange). The limit param is never mentioned, so an agent learns nothing about result capping from the description.

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?

Specific verb+resource: returns U.S. Congress stock trades from STOCK Act PTRs (House Clerk + Senate eFD). This clearly distinguishes it from the siblings get_congress_member (member lookup) and get_congress_stats (aggregates), and the data provenance is stated up front.

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?

"Filter by ticker, member (substring), chamber, or type. Newest transaction first." gives concrete usage context, including the substring matching behavior for member. However, it never names the sibling tools or states when to prefer them over this one, so there is clear context but no explicit alternatives/exclusions.

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