Find similar funded projects (NIH + NSF)

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

Annotations already declare readOnly, idempotent, openWorld, and non-destructive, so the safety profile is covered. The description adds genuinely new behavioral context: the tool fans out to two external award databases and the returned scores are a naive keyword overlap rather than semantic similarity, which is a material caveat about result quality that no annotation conveys.

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?

Three tight sentences with the safety marker front-loaded, then the mechanism, then the scoring caveat — no padding. The leading 'Read-only' duplicates the readOnlyHint annotation, a small redundancy, but the ordering is otherwise well front-loaded.

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, the description does the necessary work of describing the return conceptually (ranked funded projects with overlap scores) and warns that those scores are not semantic judgments. It stops short of describing result fields or empty-result behavior, but an agent has enough to call it correctly.

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?

At 60% schema description coverage, three of five parameters (description, sbir_sttr_only, fiscal_year_from) are documented in the schema. The description reinforces that the `description` parameter drives keyword extraction and clarifies that it covers both NIH fiscal years and NSF award years, but says nothing about `limit` or `sources`, leaving the coverage gap unclosed.

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 description gives a concrete verb chain (extracts key terms, searches NIH RePORTER and NSF Award Search, ranks by term overlap) over a specific resource (funded projects), so the mechanism is unambiguous. It implicitly separates itself from single-source siblings like search_nih_awards and search_nsf_awards by searching both and ranking rather than just listing, but no sibling is named explicitly, which keeps it short of a 5.

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 trigger condition is implied by 'Given a project description or keywords,' which tells the agent what input shape to supply, but there is no explicit when-to-use statement, no when-not-to-use, and no routing guidance against the sibling award-search tools. Usage is inferable but not spelled out.

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