Lexicon · III · Orchestration
Tool
Also: tool use, function calling
A capacity for action the harness puts in the model's hands: search the web, read a file, write to the CRM, trigger a payment. Without tools a model talks; with them, it acts.
The analogy
Back to the expert locked in the phone booth (see harness). Each tool is an object passed through the glass: a directory, then a phone, then an access badge, then a company credit card. With each object, their scope of action widens, and with it the list of what they can accomplish and what they can break.
A concrete example
The same model, connected to the CRM in read-only mode, can audit your customer data quality. Grant it write access: it can fix the data. And corrupt it. Add a "send email" tool: it can contact your customers. Serious organizations grant tools like clearances: by level, with an action log, and revocable.
What it is NOT
It is not a vendor gimmick: the tool list is the exact boundary between an assistant that advises and an agent that acts on your systems. It is not unlimited by nature: every tool is granted, logged, revocable. And it is not the model's call: the harness, meaning you, holds the list.
Often confused with
The distinction that changes the conversation.
- Model capability
- 'The AI has Internet access' is a misnomer: the model does not know how to browse; the harness hands it a search tool, which it chooses to use. Remove the tool and the capability vanishes. The list of granted tools is therefore an organizational decision, not a property of the AI.