post_progress

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

With no annotations, the description carries the behavioral burden. It does disclose meaningful behavior: the operation is atomic and combines lease renewal, heartbeat, and progress posting. But it omits failure semantics, lease-generation conflict handling, idempotency behavior, and what happens to the worker or task on invalid input, leaving notable 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?

A single sentence with no filler. 'Atomically' is front-loaded and immediately signals the most important behavioral constraint, and every phrase adds distinct information about the operation.

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?

This is a moderately complex state-changing tool with 7 parameters, 5 required, no annotations, and no output schema. The description does not explain return behavior, idempotency semantics, the role of binding_token, or how lease_generation failures are handled, so the agent cannot fully predict the tool's 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?

Schema description coverage is only 14%, so the description must compensate for documenting parameters. It only loosely maps concepts like 'lease' and 'progress' without explaining idempotency_key, binding_token, lease_generation, lease_seconds, or body format. An agent has little help beyond field names and constraints.

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 names specific actions ('renew a task lease, heartbeat the worker, and post progress') and adds the key trait 'atomically', so an agent can tell this is a combined operation rather than a plain progress update. It does not explicitly contrast sibling tools like renew_lease or worker_heartbeat, but the composite scope is clear enough.

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 word 'atomically' implies the tool should be used when lease renewal, heartbeat, and progress posting need to happen together. However, the description never names alternatives or states when this should be preferred over sibling tools like renew_lease, worker_heartbeat, or update_task, so usage guidance is only implied.

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