personal_preflight_turn

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

With no annotations provided, the description carries the full behavioral burden, and it does substantial work: it discloses a persistent side effect (turn receipt), capture expectations, footprint discipline (pre-write dedup, exactly one micro record, zero-new no-derivation), and deprecated-tier handling. It stops short of describing return values, errors, or downstream effects of invoking skip/full, so it is strong but not fully transparent.

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?

The description is dense but purposeful, front-loading the core purpose before tier rules. Some long clause chains make parsing harder, but every sentence contributes policy or behavioral detail, and there is no 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?

The tool has no annotations and no output schema, and the domain is policy-heavy, so the description must do more. It thoroughly covers tier selection and capture discipline, but it omits the role of turn_id/conversation_id, what the tool returns, and what the agent should do after a full/skip result. An agent could select the tier but not confidently construct a complete invocation.

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 only 25%; only tier is documented there. The description richly explains tier semantics and implies text is the current user message, but it never clarifies turn_id or conversation_id. Since those two parameters are undocumented in both schema and description, the low coverage gap is only partially compensated.

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 clearly identifies the tool as a mandatory content preflight for the current user message and states that it persists a turn receipt while requiring capture of personal materials. This is a specific verb+resource pairing that distinguishes it from sibling capture/retrieve tools, though it never explicitly names or compares itself to siblings like personal_capture_user_turn or personal_finalize_capture.

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 description gives explicit when-to-call and when-not-to-call rules: full/auto for personal or activity-footprint turns, skip for technical/eating/shopping/zero-value turns, and light treated as deprecated. It does not name alternative tools, but for a gate/preflight tool the call/skip decision itself is the main usage guidance.

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