Best places for a life category

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

Goes well beyond the readOnly/idempotent annotations: it explains the exactness of the distance computation (hour angle and altitude rather than a discretised polyline), that supportive and challenging totals are returned separately with every contributing line and its distance, and that the bundled place set starts at 15,000 people. That tells the agent both what a result means and the data's coverage limits, plus the endpoint and 50-credit cost.

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 what the tool does, followed by result semantics and dataset scope; every sentence carries information. The trigonometrical digression on how distance is computed is longer than an invocation decision requires, though it does justify the exactness claim.

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 a full schema, an output schema and rich annotations, the description supplies enough to call this correctly and interpret the two-sided scores. The remaining gap is routing: an agent cannot tell from the text alone why it would pick this over the sibling ACG tools.

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% and the nested birth-data object, sort, orbKm, limit, countries and minSeparationKm are all documented in the schema itself. The description only adds that there are 19 categories and points at the bundled dataset, which is not parameter-level detail beyond what the schema provides — baseline 3.

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: rank cities against astrocartography lines for one of 19 life categories, with a named dataset scope (34,028 GeoNames places above 15,000 people). Clear, but it never distinguishes itself from close siblings such as astroway_geo_acg_by_category or astroway_geo_acg, so an agent comparing them must open the schemas.

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?

No when-to-use or when-not-to-use guidance appears. The description never says how this differs from astroway_geo_acg_by_category, astroway_geo_acg_zones, or astroway_geo_relocation, all of which occupy adjacent terrain; usage is only implied by the title and dataset sentence.

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