AI Agents · Lesson

Designing Shareable Agent Tools

Tool schema standards, documentation requirements, and packaging for reuse.

What Makes a Tool Shareable?

A shareable agent tool is one that other developers can drop into their agent systems without reading the source code. It has a clear, machine-readable schema, a human-readable README, well-defined error codes, and predictable behaviour. Think of it as a library, not a script.

Tool Schema Standards

Every shareable tool must have a schema describing its inputs, outputs, and metadata. The schema is the contract between the tool author and the agent using it. Base it on JSON Schema for maximum compatibility with all major agent frameworks.

TOOL_SCHEMA_TEMPLATE = {
    'name': 'get_weather',
    'description': 'Returns current weather conditions for a city. '
                   'Use when the user asks about weather or temperature.',
    'version': '1.2.0',
    'parameters': {
        'type': 'object',
        'properties': {
            'city': {
                'type': 'string',
                'description': 'City name (e.g., London, Tokyo)',
                'minLength': 1,
                'maxLength': 100
            },
            'units': {
                'type': 'string',
                'enum': ['celsius', 'fahrenheit'],
                'default': 'celsius',
                'description': 'Temperature unit'
            }
        },
        'required': ['city']
    },
    'returns': {
        'type': 'object',
        'properties': {
            'temperature': {'type': 'number'},
            'condition': {'type': 'string'},
            'humidity_pct': {'type': 'number'}
        }
    },
    'rate_limit': {'calls_per_minute': 60}
}

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