Upsert Person

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

Annotations declare readOnlyHint=false and destructiveHint=false, so safety is partly covered; the description goes beyond them by disclosing dedup behavior ("Matches existing names and aliases to avoid duplicates") and a data-handling restriction for email/phone. It stops short of explaining what happens when a match is ambiguous or how unspecified fields behave on update.

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 short sentences with zero filler; the core create/update purpose is front-loaded, followed by dedup behavior and the privacy constraint in order of importance. Every sentence carries information an agent needs.

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?

An output schema exists so return values need not be described, and the dedup plus privacy notes are genuinely useful for a mutation tool. However, with 12 params and only a third documented, the description is not complete enough to guide correct invocation of the remaining fields or to explain merge semantics on update.

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?

With 12 parameters and only 33% schema description coverage, the schema leaves most fields undocumented (met, org, role, context, met_via, follow_up, relationship, phone). The description covers only name/aliases matching and the email/phone storage rule, so it does not compensate for the large coverage gap.

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 specific verb pair and resource ("Create or update a person"), so an agent immediately knows this is an upsert operation on a person entity. It does not, however, differentiate itself from ambiguous siblings such as person, write, patch, or capture, leaving the agent to infer which tool handles which mutation.

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?

Use is implied by the upsert semantics, and one meaningful condition is given ("Only store email/phone when the user explicitly gives them to be stored"). But there is no explicit when-to-use/when-not guidance and no sibling is named, so an agent cannot tell whether patch or write is the better route for partial updates.

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