aura_award_index

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

With no annotations, the description carries the full burden. It usefully discloses two behavioral traits: rebuild/refresh performs a 'bounded polite crawl' and the tool 'Never auto-crawls on startup'. But it does not say what status/lock means, whether rebuild destroys or replaces the corpus, whether resume requires a prior rebuild, or what permissions/environment are needed.

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?

It is compact and the enumerated action grouping is front-loaded, but the parenthetical shorthand ('counts/freshness/lock', 'studio/tag/url watches') is dense and cryptic, and the action-to-parameter mapping would benefit from a slightly more structured format.

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?

For a 5-parameter, 8-action tool with no annotations and no output schema, the description is too thin. It omits the relationship between actions and parameters, does not explain return shapes for status/new_winners, and does not warn about side effects of rebuild/resume/refresh on the local corpus.

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 0%, so the description should compensate. It mentions 'status (counts/freshness/lock)' and 'watch_add/list/remove (studio/tag/url watches)' which loosely map to the action enum and the kind enum, but it never explains award (sotd/developer/honorable), pattern, or maxPages, and does not clarify which params apply to which action.

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 a specific resource (local award corpus) and enumerates the operations it supports (status, rebuild/resume/refresh, new_winners, watch_*), which lets an agent infer the tool's domain well. Sibling differentiation against aura_award_search and aura_award_inspect is only implicit (the 'local corpus' framing hints at local state vs search), so it falls short of a clean 5.

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?

Usage is implied through the action enumeration (e.g., 'baseline then delta' for new_winners, 'bounded polite crawl' for rebuild), but there is no explicit when-to-use/when-not guidance, no mention of when to prefer aura_award_search or aura_award_inspect, and no sequencing advice for the baseline-then-delta flow.

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