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

Annotations only cover the safety profile (read-only, idempotent, non-destructive), and the description adds substantial behavior beyond that: the exact match ordering, the miss reason string 'no-entity-match', the entity count in the response, and an origin: "import" marker on imported entities. The scope caveat that 'no such entity' and 'exists in another scope' produce identical answers is a genuinely useful behavioral disclosure an agent could not infer.

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?

Front-loaded with the core purpose and zero filler; every clause carries information. The later sentences are long and clause-dense (the scope and import sentences in particular), which costs a bit of scannability, but nothing is redundant.

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?

There is no output schema, so the description correctly takes on return-value disclosure itself by describing the miss shape (reason, count, suggested tool) and the origin field on hits. Combined with the match-order semantics, an agent has everything needed to call this and interpret both success and failure.

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 100%, so the baseline is 3, but the description compensates for the schema's thinness on `scope`: it explains that both the search and the failure count are restricted to the scope, which resolves the subtle interpretation problem of a scoped miss. It also clarifies that `name` accepts aliases as well as canonical names.

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 ('Find a person/project/concept by name or alias') and immediately differentiates itself from embedding-based retrieval with 'without embeddings'. The explicit precedence list (exact canonical name → alias → substring of name → substring of note path) makes the matching behavior unambiguous and clearly distinct from siblings like search_memory or search_text.

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 strong negative boundary — 'never words inside note text, so a word only inside a saved note is not an entity' — which tells the agent when this tool will fail. On a miss it says the response includes 'the tool that would find the word', providing routing, but it defers naming that alternative to runtime rather than stating it up front.

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