Does the description disclose side effects, auth requirements, rate limits, or destructive behavior?
Annotations indicate readOnlyHint, idempotentHint, and no destructiveness. The description adds valuable behavioral context: it is the core polling operation, returns a specific structure, and advises tracking the largest id as last_id. This goes beyond annotations.
Agents need to know what a tool does to the world before calling it. Descriptions should go beyond structured annotations to explain consequences.