athena_message_board

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

With no annotations, the description carries the transparency burden. It does disclose meaningful behavioral context: the board is Git-backed, reads should precede expensive work, and writes require a verified remote frontier. However, it does not describe per-action side effects, return values, locking/lease behavior, or failure semantics, leaving significant gaps.

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 three sentences long and every sentence earns its place: the first defines the tool, the second gives action-specific usage guidance, and the third states a critical write precondition. It is dense but not padded.

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?

Given the tool's complexity (23 parameters, 7 actions, no output schema), this description is not complete enough for correct invocation. It provides high-level coordination semantics but omits per-action parameter requirements, optional field purposes, return structures, and detailed remote-frontier behavior.

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?

The schema has 23 parameters with 0% description coverage, and the description only hints at a few of them (present, join, REPLICA, frontier). It does not explain the many optional fields such as work_key, lease_seconds, targets, reply_to, or message_kind, so it adds minimal semantic value for the parameter-heavy tool.

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 identifies a shared Git message board and enumerates its coordination purposes: presence, work claims, duplicate-work prevention, collaboration, heartbeats, acknowledgements, and release/handoff. This is specific and useful, but it does not explicitly distinguish the tool from potentially similar siblings like athena_godboard or athena_party_message.

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-use guidance: 'Read before expensive shared work; use present to claim a lane, join to collaborate on an existing lane, or REPLICA only for deliberate independent replication.' It also states a clear precondition for writes: 'Writes always require a freshly verified shared remote frontier.' This is strong, actionable guidance.

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